SAE-A Spinning is a subsidiary of South Korean company Sae-A Trading Co., manufacturer of quality apparel launched operations of its new yarn spinning plant in the province of Cartago in Costa Rica with an initial investment of just over $35 million on Thursday.

The company’s CEO Woong-Ki Kim said that the new plant would create more opportunities for new and existing businesses here. The new Costa Rica plant employs 270 workers and produces cotton yarn for export, mainly to other countries in North and South America.

President Luis Guillermo Solís who attended the inauguration said the new operation strengthens efforts to generate economic prosperity and more jobs for Costa Rica.

Today this modern facility launches operations hand in hand with hundreds of Costa Ricans whose talent and dedication will help this company grow.

The opening of the South Korean company boosts Costa Rica’s textile sector, which in past decades has been affected by the relocation and closure of several multinational companies.

The upward trend could continue as Canadian company Gildan Activewear announced plans last year to install a manufacturing plant in the province of Guanacaste.

Gildan’s choice of Costa Rica followed several months of negotiations between the company and the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE). Total investment and an exact date for the start of construction on the Gildan plant have not been made public, but CINDE reported in May that Gildan’s new Guanacaste facility would create some 1,000 new jobs for the province.

SAE-A Spinning currently has more than 60,000 employees at 41 operations in 10 countries. Its total textile exports in 2014 exceeded $1.5 billion, while total sales of its other operations were over $2 billion.

SAE-A’s business operations extend around the world; it has manufacturing facilities from Vietnam to Guatemala and offices from Korea to the United States. They strive to run their businesses in an environmentally sustainable way by minimizing and offsetting environmental impact, and work to invest in a wide range of corporate social responsibility programs specific to the needs of the community