Last month global speciality paperboard and plastic packaging supplier Chesapeake Corporation began building a new pharmaceutical packaging plant near Shanghai that will supply paperboard cartons, labels and leaflets to domestic and multinational pharmaceutical customers.
To be operated by Hong Kong-based subsidiary, Chesapeake Asia-Pacific, the 36,000 ft² plant will complement, and be built close to, Chesapeake's existing Kunshan plastic packaging plant, should be operational by mid-2006 and employ around 150. The existing factory produces bottles for the pharma industry and recently became the first foreign-owned packaging facility to receive the 100,000 grade certification for its cleanroom operation from China's State Food and Drug Administration.
UPM's Raflatac, meanwhile, is to build a "world-class" US$40M pressure-sensitive labelstock factory in Changshu, next to UPM's existing paper mill in China's Jiangsu province, in its quest to become the region's "preferred supplier of pressure-sensitive labelstock". Having applied for permits, it hopes to have the plant operational by early 2007.
"We expect the demand for pressure-sensitive labelstock in China to grow strongly in the coming years, driven by both strong export activity and a quickly developing domestic consumer goods market," says Raflatac president Heikki Pikkarainen.
