History & Business

The founder, Ng family started the business in 1971 as a partnership until its incorporation as a private limited company in June 1973 under the name of SKL. The original partners in the partnership were Mr Ng Hoo Tee, Mr Ng Hor Huat @ Ng Eh Wat, Datuk Ng Eng Sos @ Bah Chik and Datuk Ng Yeng Keng @ Ng Ka Hiat. Currently, Datuk Ng Yeng Keng @ Ng Ka Hiat is the Chief Executive Officer of the Kia Lim Group.

Kia LimSKL obtained a manufacturing license from MITI on 18 April 1978 to produce clay bricks. Originally, SKL started its manufacturing operation by using the manually operated “open top” kilns. The production capacity for each of these kilns was 2.4 million pieces of bricks per annum. SKL started with two kilns and subsequently increased to four. In order to improve further the quality of the bricks and to reduce the rejection rate, the “open top” kilns were replaced by a newer and better technology known as “hill slope” kilns. The production capacity was then increased to 12 million pieces per annum. In 1983, SKL increased its production capacity to 36 million pieces per annum and due to high demands in the market, a new manufacturing plant was set up under KRBB in 1984 by employing Italian machines and Taiwanese tunnel kilns.

By 1985, both SKL and KRBB had a collective production capacity of 96 million pieces of common bricks per annum, with SKL having a production capacity of 60 million pieces of common bricks per annum using a semi-automated plant and KRBB with a production capacity of 36 million pieces per annum. In late 1991, KRBB installed a second plant with new and sophisticated fully automated brick making machinery bringing the total production capacity of KRBB to 72 million pieces of bricks per annum. In 1993, this plant was further enhanced by installing equipments that enable the production of quality facing bricks with an output capacity of 24 million pieces per annum.

Today, with the years of unrelenting and continuous improvements and enhancements, the total production capacity of the Kia Lim Group is approximately 180 million pieces of bricks per annum.

At present, approximately 75% of our total production output is for domestic markets, mostly to Johor, Melaka, Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, while the balance is for overseas markets.