
What is commonly known as Laundry & Dry Cleaning in the KSA, kindly allow me to use the term ‘’The Textiles Industry’’, my industry, has a bright future in Saudi Arabia. The vision of Saudi Arabia can be described in various ways, I choose to say it is welcoming, exciting and vast.
Neom City, Jeddah Economic City, Diriyah Gate, Amaaala (The Riviera of the Middle East), Red Sea Project, Jabal Omar Development and others will become integral to the fifth largest country in Asia.
The country is looking to close this year with welcoming 30 million international visitors which is nearly half of its goal of 70 million by 2030 Saudi vision. The general population of 36 million in 2022 is anticipated to reach 50 million by 2030.
Let’s go back to ‘’The Textiles Industry’’. Collectively in the next 6 years we have a lot of planning to do. The market, for me, is unspoilt compared to other sunny parts of the world, this should be embraced and copious amounts of positivity is there to be seized.
Across the Kingdom, our industry has various types of facilities to clean fabrics, ranging from small independent retail shops in the high-street, on-premises laundries in establishments such as hotels, hospitals and leisure facilities.
All such facilities will offer different concepts to fill the needs of their clients. All laundries are different, from design to the specifications of the equipment to be used, technology used will range from the novice to a state-of-the-art facility.
The call for capacity in commercial laundry terms is vast, a new division of Lavendery is to be launched in the coming months, initiating bespoke services, all of which new to the marketplace.
The novice will always have their part to play but the spine of the industry needs to explore ways to ensure we supply the demand.
Chemical and equipment suppliers are a good example of those who need to explore with the textile service provider. They have an integral role to play to take us to the next level, buzz words such as innovation, sustainability, efficiency and productivity should be spoken when presenting a proposal or solution.
The Oil & Gas sector has used such words for more years than I can remember, therefore is it acceptable that we should accept anything less?
Manufacturers of fabric(s) are changing every week, whether this be bed linen(s), home furnishings, global clothing brands and industrial workwear. Saudi Arabia is no exception to these types of fabric changes and to ensure the buyer has their investment cleaned to the highest standard possible, we need to evolve and continuously look at research and development within and through our business partners.
It is suggested that 95% of clothes purchased in our high street shops can be cleaned in water, even those types of fabrics such as wool which historically have been cleaned, predominantly with solvent based cleaners. Surely this is something worth embracing here, in the same way in other parts of the world recognizing that the environment is important, plus the added flexibility and benefits of having wet cleaning in our armoury.
The ongoing projects in the NEOM region have many laundries in place, Lavendery are now actively involved as service providers and passionately promoting wet cleaning.
The word NEOM represents the words, ‘’New’’ and ‘’The Future’’, so where better than NEOM to be implementing such concepts in cleaning.
About the author:
Gary Teeley is the Group Operations Manager at Lavendery.