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The Textile Magazine
FEBRUARY 2012
Mitsui Chemicals, a Japan-based
nonwovens producer with facili-
ties in Japan and Thailand, plans to
establish a new facility in Tianjin,
China, for making spunbond non-
wovens for the disposable diaper
market. The facility is expected to
begin operations in September 2013.
Andrew Industries, a UK-based
specialist in baghouse filters, has
purchased a production plant in
Wuxi from the Finnish company
Ahlstrom, thereby adding to its dust
filtration material assets in China.
In addition, the company plans to
add a needlepunch line at the plant
to make PTFE felts. The new ca-
pacity will, in part, support the bag
fabricating and distribution facility
which was opened in Chennai, In-
dia, in late 2011. However, Andrew
Industries hopes to add nonwovens
production to the Chennai site with-
in the next two years.
Hollingsworth & Vose, a US-
based supplier of engineered papers
and nonwovens, has formed a joint
venture with the Nath Group to build
a new mill in Maharashtra, India.
Meanwhile, the South Korea-
based Toray Advanced Materials, a
wholly owned subsidiary of Toray
Industries, added a second line at its
Chinese operation in March 2011,
and plans to bring a third line on
stream at this operation in July next.
However, the company’s most re-
cently announced investment is a
20,000-ton line which is planned for
Tangerang in Indonesia. The new
line is set to start up in June 2013.
Toray’s investments in China and
Indonesia are being driven by pre-
dictions of rapid growth in demand
for disposable baby diapers in mem-
ber-countries of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) as
a result of strong economic growth
in this region.
Asahi Kasei, a Japan-based pro-
ducer of nonwovens aimed prima-
rily at the diaper market, has begun
construction of a new line in Thai-
land in partnership with the Saha
Group. The line represents the com-
pany’s first investment outside Ja-
pan, and the decision to build it was
made in an attempt to reduce costs
and improve profitability.
Fibertex, a Denmark-based pro-
ducer of nonwovens for a wide
range of end uses, has recently fin-
ished construction of a third spun-
melt line at its facility in Malaysia.
Production on the line, which will
target personal care markets, has
been building up. The company
has also expanded in the southern
hemisphere with a new operation
in South Africa to manufacture
needlepunched nonwovens for use
in geotextiles and products for the
South African automotive industry.
From a long-term strategic per-
spective, the project is expected to
serve as a gateway to southern Afri-
ca and to countries and regions else-
where in the southern hemisphere,
such as Australasia, India, the Mid-
dle East and South America.
Pegas, a spunmelt nonwovens
producer which operates nine lines
in the Czech Republic, has an-
nounced its first foreign investment
by revealing plans to build a manu-
facturing site in Egypt in response
to rising demand in North Africa
and the Middle East. The company
plans to build two nonwovens lines
in Egypt. The first will go on stream
in late 2013 and the second is due
to go on stream some time during
2015-16. Each line will be able to
annually make about 20,000 tons of
material.
w
industry update