A total of 50 jobs for Bahrainis will be created with the support of Tamkeen as a Chinese heating and cooling equipment producer scales up its Bahrain operation.
Tamkeen yesterday announced the jobs will be at KKC Industries (iCOOL) – a manufacturer of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) products – as part of its focus on enabling creation of high-quality jobs for local talent.
This follows the establishment of iCOOL’s $10.7 million manufacturing facility in the kingdom earlier this year.
Commenting on the initiative, Maha Mofeez, acting chief executive at Tamkeen, emphasised the importance of supporting the manufacturing sector to fulfil Tamkeen’s strategic goal of driving greater economic impact for Bahrain.
“iCOOL’s new manufacturing facility will create quality job opportunities for Bahrainis which upskills them for the future, and enables their career development. Furthermore, iCOOL will increase Bahrain’s exports to international markets, and provide growth opportunities for other economic sectors as they purchase their supplies locally,” she added.
Also commenting was Gary Xu, general manager of iCOOL Bahrain, who welcomed Tamkeen’s support.
“We look forward to working with Bahrain’s highly skilled workforce to drive our business goals. We aspire to produce 480 containers of air conditioning insulation pipes within the first year of operation to generate more than $31m in revenue,” he said.
The GDN had reported in May that the factory will produce and export air conditioning insulation pipes to the wider Middle East, as well as the US and Europe.
It seeks to use Bahrain’s strategic location and duty free trade through its FTAs with 22 countries around the world, including the first ever US FTA with a GCC member.
iCOOL serves customers from 130 countries with an annual revenue of $420m and approximately 80pc of the machinery it uses is designed and developed in-house, allowing it to operate at 10pc higher capacity than peers.
The growing manufacturing sector is a major pillar of Bahrain’s Economic Recovery Plan, as it is the second largest contributor to the kingdom’s non-oil economy which contributes to 14 per cent of the national GDP.
The strategy aims to increase the sector’s contribution to the overall GDP, increase national exports, and create additional job opportunities.
avinash@gdnmedia.bh
&uuid=(email))