Chinese plastic container and film manufacturer Guangdong Huasheng Plastics Co. Ltd. said it is building a new facility in Fujian province to meet growing demand within China and investing in European equipment to upgrade.
The Shantou, Guangdong province-based firm plans to open the new factory in Zhangzhou by the end of this year, as it sees rising demand within China for its thermoformed containers and extruded packaging sheet, a company executive told Plastics News.
The 105,000-square-meter Zhangzhou factory will be five times larger than its production base in Shantou and will be more automated to help the company deal with rising labor costs, said Ely Wu, vice sales manager.
The company also believes it will be easier to find workers for its packing operations in Fujian than Shantou, she said.
Huasheng is purchasing its first German-made equipment, an extrusion line and roll-stack from Battenfeld Cincinnati, according to a June 13 news release from Vienna, Austria-based Battenfeld, which said this is the first time it has sold a Multi-Touch roll-stack machine to a Chinese customer.
“The Chinese packaging market is one of the markets with the highest growth rates worldwide,” said Huasheng owner Wei Yunan, in the Battenfeld news release. “We have also noticed a rise in the demand for higher standards of quality and efficiency, to which we are responding with this investment.”
The new line will replace four to six Chinese-built extrusion lines in Huasheng, Battenfeld said.
Wu said demand for its packaging is coming from customers including KFC in China. On its website, the company said it supplies to restaurants and stores including KFC, Pizza Hut, H.E.B., Chinese fast food chain Kungfu and Chinese pharmaceutical company Tong Ren Tang.
Huasheng makes 90 tons of containers and 120 tons of sheet a day, from polypropylene, polystyrene, PET, ethylene vinyl alcohol and polylactic acid. It employs about 300 in Shantou, with 60-70 percent of its production sold domestically, Wu said.
