In the wake of the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, our CEO, Raymond Wong recognised a need to diversify our revenue base. We identified garment processing as a niche business in the garment industry in Cambodia which was being promoted as one of the key sectors of the economy following the formation of a new coalition government in 1998 and improved political stability in the country.

In 1999, our CEO, Raymond Wong, acquired a majority stake in T&W Cambodia from its shareholders who intended to exit the business in Cambodia. At that time, T&W Cambodia was providing basic washing services mainly for knitwear to a few customers from its approximately 800sq m facility. Leveraging on this knowledge and experience from the industrial laundry equipment business, he re-organized the operations of T&W Cambodia to improve the work flow processes and expanded its range of equipment used for garment processing. As our quality of services improved, we achieved an increase in sale orders from our existing and new customers.

In a bid to tab on the market potential in garment processing for denims, we shifted our focus from processing of knitwear to denims in 2000. In line with this strategy, we expanded our industrial laundry equipment of increase our capacity for the processing of denims. We also broadened our range of garment processing services from basic washing to dyeing and sand blasting services. To cater for our business expansion, we increased our facility by more than seven-fold to occupy a built-in area of about 6,000 sq m.

In the same year, leveraging on our knowledge from the industrial laundry equipment business, we started to modify our equipment to achieve the desired effects on garments and meet our customers varied specifications. We believe that this gave us an edge over our competitors and enabled us to expand our business and customer base. To streamline our work flow processes and cater for further business expansion, we relocated our facility to our exiting premises which had a built-in area of about 7,000 sq m in 2001.

As our capacity expanded and the quality of our services improved, we secured increased orders from contract manufacturers of US brand. In 2003, in response to fashion trends for denims, we increased our capacity for carrying out dry processes such as grinding, whickering and hand brushing services. As a result, we successfully secured orders from contract manufactures of major denim brands. We also stared working directly with buying houses who place orders with our customers in other to better understand their requirements.

Since 1999, we have established a good reputation as a garment processing service provider amongst the US fashion labels, their buying houses contract manufactures in Cambodia. As a testimony of our track record, we believe that we are one of the few garment processing service providers approved directly by the major US fashion labels.

As we embarked on our next phase of growth, we undertook various initiatives to increase our capacity, improve our cost efficiency and strengthen our relationship with our customers. To this end, we constructed an extension to our facility, which was complete in February 2006 and expanded our production facilities to about 40,000 sq m. We have also switched from fuel oil to scrap wood, since 2004, to manage our utility costs. In addition, we have set up an R&D Department to co-operate with the fashion label and buying houses in developing new designs and effects for garments.