Ahmedabad, Nov 20 (UNI) Austria-based Constantia Flexibles, the third largest global producer of flexible packaging material, on Wednesday opened its ninth Indian plant in India near this city of Gujarat, which is the first facility in the world to produce a new kind of lightweight packaging material, which can be recycled nine times.
The plant situated near Moraiya village in Sanand taluka of Ahmedabad district was inaugurated by Austrian Ambassador to India Brigitte Oppinger Walchshofer.
Talking to newspersons here, CEO of the company, which has a total of 38 plants now in 16 countries, including India, where it has nine plants including two in Gujarat, Alexander Baumgartner said the start of the plant has marked a new era in flexible packaging.
'The patent product in the new facility EcoLam, is a lightweight Mono-PE laminate suitable for a variety of packaging applications. Due to its mono-material structure and lower carbon footprint, around 32 per cent lower than that of comparable products, it was fully recyclable.
'The greenfield plant is opening after more than two years of intensive preparations. It has an area of 24500 sq mt and direct employment was over 200. The other plant in Gujarat, situated nearby, first of the company in India, has employed 650 people,' he added.
The CEO said the company, which started test runs of the new facility in September itself, would export the new product to South Africa and several European countries. The product would later be duplicated in other plants of the company also.
The Euro 1.6 billion company's CEO refused to divulge the tune of investment in the latest facility in Gujarat. He said that several big names like Hindustan Unilever, Britannia, Nestle, Amul, Kellogg, Real, Zydus pharma and Torrent Pharma were clients of that company in India.
To a query, he said the company would like to expand the capacity of its existing plants in India rather than going for new acquisitions.
He said the company has no plant in China and has no plans either to move there. It was more focused on its India operations, which was growing at 14 to 15 per cent CAGR since its entry in the country almost five years ago.
The growth was higher than that in any other country. Last year the Indian turnover of the Vienna based company was Rs 950 crore.
The policies of the Modi government with regard to plastic and its firm resolve in this regard were also good for the company, which plans to make 100 per cent of its products recyclable by 2025. This percentage currently was 56 per cent.
UNI RAJ RJ 1748