By Kingsley Adegboye

Messrs Lucky Fibres Plc, makers of Nobel premium brand of carpets and rugs, has unveiled its new range of woven rugs to its dealers. The company which is the first in the West African sub-region to produce woven rugs, has equally installed the latest state of the art technology, CRP 92 weaving machine from Van Dewiele, Belgium.

The woven carpets and rugs were unveiled to trade partners, distributors and dealers at an elaborate event in Lagos tagged “walk with us”.

General Manager of the company, Mr. Neeraj Kalaskar said the new products is an evidence of the company’s continued quest for excellence and the need to cater for its Nigerian consumers.

Mr. Kalaskar said the company invested about 1.5 million dollars to acquire the CRP 92 weaving machine (the latest technology for manufacturing of woven carpet from Belgium) to satisfy Nigerian consumers with the world class products comparable to those available in any other developed nations of the world.

L-R Mrs. Bunmi Odunoye, Messrs. Hemant Nahar and Neeraj Kalaskar at the launch.

“With the installation of CRP 92 weaving machine, Nobel carpets now offers the entire range of products in the soft-floor covering segment which gives us the competitive advantage to manufacture world class woven rugs to our consumers,” he boasted.

On the production capacity of the new machine, Kalaskar said it can produce a minimum of 1500 square metres of woven carpets and rugs with a minimum of 10 to maximum of 15 new rug designs a day.

Sales Manager of the company, Mr. Hemant Nahar stated that although the launch of the nature collection of the woven carpets and rugs completes the product portfolio for Nobel Carpets & Rugs, it will not be the end product development and innovation for the brand.

He disclosed that the company will start with 37 different designs of the woven carpets and rugs in the nature collection with many more designs to be launched in the next few months.

According to him, Lucky Fibres Plc invested about N3.5 billion about three years ago to acquire state of the art technology for printed rugs. He pointed out that it is the only company having such printed technology in the entire sub Saharan Africa, which makes the company the technology cutting edge to offer exclusive customised designs to its customers.

Describing the challenges confronting the company as increasing price of raw materials and the illegal imports into the country of old-stock carpets, the company only imports the raw materials that cannot be procured locally.

The company has a state of the art yarn plant, which makes the basic starting material of any carpet. The yarn is then tufted into carpets and rugs.