Sri Lanka fabric maker’s losses mount

Mar 02, 2011 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's Kuruwita Textile Mills said slowing sales and high cotton prices have caused mounting losses that it hopes to mitigate by passing onto customers higher costs and hiring a new chief executive.





Interim results filed with the stock exchange showed December 2010 quarter losses of 108 million rupees compared with profits of 82 million rupees the year before with sales down 35 percent to 1.



3 billion rupees.

Loss per share was 4.34 rupees for the quarter compared with earnings of 3.

27 rupees a year ago

Losses for the nine months ending December 31, 2010 amounted to 282 million rupees compared with a profit of 54 million rupees the previous year, the company, a unit of clothing exporter Brandix Textile Holding, said.

Kuruwita Textile Mills chairman Aslam Omar told shareholders sales had slowed down sharply and the firm had been unable to fully pass on rising cotton prices to customers.

Investment in new machinery to improve product quality had also left the firm, which supplies treated fabric to garment manufacturers, saddled with high finance costs.

Sales for the nine months under review fell 17 percent to 3.

9 billion rupees from the previous year.

"This was mainly du