Essential News

Seoul, South Korea. November 24, 2021. The Korean company, Global Sae-A Group, one of the world’s largest clothing manufacturers, has announced that it will be tripling the scale of its production in Costa Rica through its subsidiary SAE-A Spinning SRL.

This will bring the company’s investment in Costa Rica up to US$150 million, thanks to the construction of two more plants. The company projects its operational launch of the second stage in March 2022 and the third stage in 2024, increasing production capacity to 100,000 spindles and 24 million kilos of thread. 

Global Sae-A Group’s relationship with Costa Rica began in 2015. With Sae-A Spinning SRL’s operation in Cartago, Costa Rica became the first original clothing equipment manufacturer to integrate vertically by including all clothing production processes from spinning, weaving, and dyeing to sewing. 

At present, the company has more than 300 employees and plans to hire 330 more for its different areas and levels during the second and third phases. 

On Wednesday morning, President Alvarado and Foreign Trade Minister Andrés Valenciano met with Mr. Kim Ki-Myung, CEO of Global Sae-A Group, Mr. James Ha, President of Sae-A Trading, and top company representatives, at which time the company’s new project on Costa Rican soil was announced. 

One of the activities on the President’s official agenda in Seoul, South Korea, was a meeting with top Sae-A representatives in order to reinforce Costa Rica’s positioning for retaining and expanding productive operations, explore the company’s growth opportunities for stimulating job creation and knowledge transfer, and share viewpoints on actions for fostering an even more competitive business climate.

During the announcement, President Alvarado thanked the company for its confidence in Costa Rica over the past six years and emphasized that “the expansion of a major internationally-recognized clothing manufacturer and exporter such as Global SAE-A Group reaffirms the conditions and confidence generated by Costa Rica for attracting investment.”

Foreign Trade Minister Valenciano expressed his pleasure, mentioning that “Costa Rica and South Korea have developed close ties over almost 60 years. South Korea is a major partner with which we share a vision in the fields of environment, business, culture, economy, and technology. As a reflection of this, since 2015 we have hosted one of Korea’s most prestigious companies, SAE-A Spinning. During our meeting with the company’s representatives, we discussed its sustained growth in Costa Rica, which demonstrates its firm commitment and confidence in our country and Costa Ricans. Moreover, we shared opinions on the business climate and ways in which, together with companies such as SAE-A Spinning, we can improve our country’s competitiveness to the benefit of the Costa Rican people.”

He also noted that “we are extremely pleased with this announced expansion since it reaffirms the potential our country offers to the world. We celebrate this great news, the new opportunities it creates, and the contributions it will make to our economy.”

Kim Ki-Myung, CEO of Global Sae-A, stated that “[our] large-scale investment for increasing Costa Rican spinning production has been achieved thanks to the Costa Rican government’s active cooperation and support. We at Global Sae-A will continue to exert our best efforts to contribute to Costa Rica’s development.”

For his part, Jorge Sequeira, Managing Director at CINDE, commented that “CINDE celebrates the growth of Sae-A Spinning in Costa Rica. This demonstrates the confidence deposited in Costa Rica by this Korean investment for continuing to expand in our country’s technified textile sector, which will grow from a production of 7.8 million kilos of thread per year to 24 million once the third manufacturing plant stage is activated. It is also an example of advanced manufacturing immersed in a circular economy, thanks to its project for recycling three types of thread production waste, reusing it as raw material in the production process.”

The Costa Rican operation has grown tremendously due to its excellent results in our country, valuing the quality of Costa Rican human talent and the product manufactured in Cartago. 

Those interested in applying should send their CV to: adriana.araya@saespin.com

Global SAE-A Group, headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, is a major, internationally-recognized apparel manufacturer and exporter with more than 60,000 employees in 24 offices and 41 production facilities in ten countries around the world, exporting to leading brands and fashion retailers in the United States and Europe.

In 2011, Sae-A set up in Indonesia one of the world’s largest manufacturing facilities, with the latest textile technology, which has achieved a stellar reputation for quality.