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Senior Business Reporter
THE country’s sole conveyor belt manufacturer, General Beltings, has paid back $500,000 of the $1 million loan it received under the Distressed Industries and marginalised Areas Fund (Dimaf).

Managing director Wilbroad Tsuroh told Business Chronicle the firm needs more capital to improve its operational efficiency.

“In the context of the market we’re serving, General Beltings needs $5 million to improve efficiency as well as ensuring that the company’s raw material pipeline is fully supplied ordinarily by the country of manufacture,” he said.

‘“We’re in negotiations with international partners so that we get the amount of funding we require to improve our efficiency.”

Tsuroh said they were looking for investors to partner through a mix and match arrangement in order to exploit available market opportunities.

“The partnership we’re looking for should be a mix and match so that we see how their (investors) demands meet with our strategic thrust,” he added.

At present, General Beltings imports fabric from South Africa, which is one of the critical raw materials required in the production of conveyor belts.

“If we’re fully funded we would be able get raw materials such as the fabric directly from the country (Malaysia) of manufacture and cut down our production costs,” he said.

At the moment, General Beltings is operating on an order financing system hence its fluctuating capacity utilisation. “We can operate to about 90 percent capacity depending on the availability of funding. What this means is that when funding runs out at any given moment, our capacity slides down,” said Tsuroh.

He said the Dimaf loan assisted the firm to boost its operations.

“However, some of our major customers didn’t take us seriously as they perceived us to be on the brink of collapse. As a result, instead of us selling to major customers, we were dealing with middle level customers and we ended up with an underperforming debtors’ book,” Tsuroh said.