China Eximbank provides $6.7 million loan for Textile Industrial Park Construction Project

Project narrative

In 2008, China Eximbank provided a $6.7 million loan to the Yuemei Group (or Zhejiang Yuemei Group Co., Ltd.) for the construction of a textile industrial park in Nigeria. In 2007 and 2008, the Yuemei Group invested more than $50 million to construct the Yuemei-Nigeria Textile Industry Park — China’s first overseas textile industrial park — with a complete production chain of spinning, weaving, embroidery, knitting, and garment making. The proceeds of the China Eximbank loan were used to support this investment. By 2009, five textile firms had moved into the industrial park and employed an estimated 1,000 local workers. The original vision was to establish a textile cluster where different specialist textile production firms could co-locate. However, despite interest from Chinese textiles firms, only two firms ever came to invest in this cluster: Mawa, which specialized in textile dying and printing, and Jinmei, which specialized in embroidery. These investments were short-lived. Although Jinmei was operational from 2010 to 2011, its operations ceased soon after when demand for embroidered cloth plummeted. Mawa also ceased production in early 2014 due to short supplies of dyes. In February 2014, Mawa and Jinmei were evicted from the Yuemei Fabric Industrial Zone (YFIZ), and their assets were sold to new, non-Chinese buyers.