According to a Bloomberg Businessweek report today, Italian hosiery, swimwear and underwear manufacturing retailer Calzedonia SpA is to invest 20 million euros ($26.8 million) to expand its manufacturing in northern Serbia.

The Verona-based company's new 18,000-square metre plant in Subotica, will open in 2014, and will eventually employ 1000 people for manufacturing its Intimissimo brand, Francesco Ruffoli, Calzedonia's executive director, told Bloomberg as he signed a cooperation agreement with Serbia's Economy Minister Nebojsa Ciric in the capital Belgrade today.

The report said Calzedonia opened its first Serbian plant in 2010 in nearby Sombor, where it produces 20,000 items a day with 670 workers. It is also expected to add another 400 jobs at the first facility, with an 800,000-euro subsidy from the Serbian government.

In August the company announced it will invest US$20m in a brand new garment factory in Sri Lanka's Northern Province of Vavuniya. The factory will produce garments for the Intimissimi, Tezenis and Calzedonia brands for export to Europe and is said to be due to begin operations in October 2012. It will employ up to 1500 workers when it reaches full capacity.

The new Sri Lankan facility will be operated by Omega Line Limited, a fully-owned owned unit of Calzedonia Finanziaria, which has been producing in Sri Lanka since 1999 and now employs 3000 people in the country producing lingerie. Calzedonia was founded in 1987 close to Verona, in Vallese di Oppeano, Italy. It has more than 1300 stores worldwide in countries including Italy, Spain, Czech Republic, Greece, Mexico and Russia and was founded with the aim of creating a new way of selling hosiery and beachwear for women, men and children, through a franchising sales network.

Little more than twenty years later, the Calzedonia network boasts more than 1300 shops throughout the world. Its success is said to be due to a number of factors: the huge range of products, the particular attention paid to fashion and the unbeatable quality-price ratio.