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SIG Combibloc Celebrates Inauguration of its First Chinese Packaging Plant Suzhou, November 2004. SIG Combibloc, a world leading company in the packaging industry, officially inaugurated its first plant in China, a production facility in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province on November 26. The SIG Combibloc Suzhou packaging production plant in China reaffirms the company’s commitment to its Chinese and Asian customers. "With the dynamics of this market and our strong customer relations in this region, China has great significance for our customers’ and SIG’s growth in the future", said Rolf-Dieter Rademacher, Chief Executive Officer, SIG Group. Located in the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP), the SIG Combibloc Suzhou facility started production in July 2004. At the 60,000 square meter production site and with almost 200 employees in China, SIG Combibloc will offer a whole range of products and technical support to its customers. Currently, SIG Combibloc customers include many brand leaders in juice and dairy manufacturing all over China. “Supported by our two sales and marketing offices in Shanghai and Beijing, the new packaging plant in Suzhou enables us to grow with both existing and new customers,“ noted Douglas Broughton, Chief Executive Officer, SIG Combibloc China. “The new plant meets the growing demand for beverage cartons, and enables SIG Combibloc to offer high quality products to our Chinese customers with shorter delivery time and increased flexibility“, explained Douglas Boughton on the investment in Suzhou. “China’s packaging sector will continue to grow, and I am confident SIG Combibloc will be a strong partner for Chinese customers to achieve even greater success.” Three phase expansion plan With a three phase expansion plan, SIG Combibloc will invest a total of 90 million Euros in China. During this first stage, the Suzhou SIG Combibloc facility will be a conversion plant, and get semi-finished product (laminated carton) from SIG Combibloc’s Rayong site in Thailand. In Suzhou, the production team will print on the laminated carton with a state of the art rotogravure printing press and complete the packaging process, e.g. crease, cut, fold and seal, to ensure SIG Comblibloc’s highest quality standards. In the next phase, SIG Combibloc will equip the plant with a full extrusion unit, and the final phase will enable China to double its production capacity. In this phase, the Suzhou plant will produce the popular formats combiblocStandard cb5 and combiblocSmall cb7, and will add further formats as the market develops. SIG Combibloc China introduced the new packaging format, combifit, which enables customers to differentiate its product packaging, especially in more premium market segments such as 100 per cent juice or yogurt drinks for retail and catering channels. In addition to the success of combifit, SIG Combibloc plans to introduce the revolutionary packaging innovation combishape, which does not limit beverage cartons to a rectangular shape and will allow brand leaders to create a unique and exclusive appearance. These innovative packaging cartons target the evergrowing high-end market in the more affluent urban areas of China. For the inauguration celebration, SIG Combibloc invited over 250 guests for a day of activities including, an official opening ceremony and customer business forum. Reputable industry and business leaders were speakers: Frans Barel, Chief Execu-tive Officer of the Refresco Group, Collins Qian, Manager of The Boston Consulting Group, and Zhang Tianfu, Commander of the Hangzhou Military Group and Sun-Tze Art of War Lecturer. In Boughton’ s remarks, he noted “The opening of the new production plant is a great step forward for SIG Combibloc in China. The project itself has been a great success, completed on time and on budget. Additionally, the start of production has been exceptionally smooth due to the efforts of the new staff employed in Suzhou, and considerable and continual support of our international sister companies which included training of our new staff.” Download Media Release 041126 Your contact: Heike Thevis – Press Officer SIG Combibloc GmbH Rurstrasse 58, D-52441 Linnich, Germany Tel: +49 2462 79 2608 Fax: +49 2462 79 17 2608 E-mail: heike.thevis@sig.biz SIG Combibloc is one of the world's leading systems suppliers of carton packaging and filling machines for beverages and food. Employing approx. 4,060 people, the company recorded sales of EUR 1,075 million in 2004. SIG Combibloc is a division of SIG Holding AG, Neuhausen am Rheinfall. ;)
Located in the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP), the SIG Combibloc Suzhou facility started production in July 2004. At the 60,000 square meter production site and with almost 200 employees in China, SIG Combibloc will offer a whole range of products and tech-nical support to its customers. ;)
"With the dynamics of this market and our strong customer relations in this region, China has great significance for our customers’ and SIG’s growth in the future", said Rolf-Dieter Rademacher, Chief Executive Officer, SIG Group (on the right). News overview >> |
