Silk Route Beauty Products has announced it will double production of cosmetic toiletry brands at its Jebal Ali factory next year.

The company is introducing a new brand of soap and a liquid hand wash in January 2002 to join three soap brands it has been producing since the factory came on stream in 1999.

International sales and marketing manager B. Gautam Siyal said current annual production was around 4,000 tonnes per year (tpy), but with expanded facilities and double-shift duty the plant would turn out twice that.

The new soap, Angel, listed as a luxury brand, extends the existing range of bathing soaps - Silk, described as the premium brand; Royal, classified as the family soap, and Miss Paris, marketed as the mass-market brand. The other new product is a liquid hand wash. Siyal said the company had plans to venture into deodorants before long.

"Right now liquid soap seems to be the 'in thing' instead of soap bars," said Siyal. "Demand in the Gulf region is good since people here are very quality conscious, and what sells in the West, especially the US, will sell exceptionally well here."

According to the official, 95 per cent of all production is exported. He estimated the Gulf market for bathing soaps at 35,000 tpy to 40,000 tpy and claimed that Silk Route had a five per cent share of that.

"In the span of just two years we have been able to appoint 25 distributors across the Middle East, Africa, the Subcontinent and advanced markets such as the US and Canada," said Siyal. The Silk Route facility is part of the Khwaja family's business interests that include electronics and commodities. Zaki Khwaja, looks after the day-to-day affairs at Silk Route as director. Another member of the family, Neemat Khwaja, looks after Shekeeb Gulf, an electronics company, also in the Jebel Ali Free Zone.

The company uses European-made machinery as well as European fragrances from H & R, IFF, Dragoco and Fermenich.

Siyal said the company would launch a big campaign in the near future with the Gulf and the subcontinent as the target markets. Popular TV channels such as Zee and Sony and other media would be approached in the endeavour to boost sales in the two markets.

"The GCC is a developed market and brand-conscious too, so we have taken great pains to bring our quality and packaging on a par with international brands. We are doing fairly well, almost a container a month, and with the introduction of additional brands in 2002 we hope to increase our market share, and by the year 2005 would like to figure among the top five brands in the GCC.

"The needs of the market keep changing fast and we need to be geared to meeting demand in the shortest possible time. For that reason we are upgrading our facility and giving our customers new fragrances and soap designs. The consumer today is very demanding. Today's consumer does not mind paying a little extra provided he gets value for money."

Siyal voiced the cosmetic toiletry industry's fear that inferior manufactures would steal a march over in profits by selling cheap. "The unorganised sector makes low-quality soaps and packs small sizes in big boxes, there-by deceiving the customer," he said.

"We need to educate the masses on what goes into the making of a soap. As our director, Mr Khwaja says, the flour used will determine the quality of bread. All our products are manufactured under ultra-hygienic conditions and undergo rigouous quality control."