Kothari Industrial Corporation (KICL) is expanding its fertilizer and footwear facilities and setting up an industrial park, which entails a cumulative investment of about $1 billion over the next three years.

Of this, two footwear manufacturing units alone will have an investment of Rs 5,000 crore, J Rafiq Ahmed, who took over as its executive chairman said. All the facilities are coming up in Tamil Nadu.

"We are reviving a footwear manufacturing unit at Karur to produce an international footwear brand, while the second facility will parallelly come up in our non-leather footwear industrial park at Perambalur,"he added . 

Phoenix Kothari Footwear, a joint venture between (KICL) and Evervan group of Taiwan, is likely to sign an MoU on Feb 26 with the Tamil Nadu government for the purpose, he added.

Phoenix Kothari already operates a factory at Perambalur from 2023. 

"About 100 million pairs of footwear would be rolled out of factories by the end of Dec 2027. The non-leather footwear industrial park will also house component manufacturers. More than 50,000 people will get employment in our facilities by 2027," Rafiq added.