German plastics distributor and compounder Albis Plastic (Hamburg; www.albis.com) now has a production facility in China. On 12 August, the company opened its production site in Changshu (see also Plasteurope.com of 12.04.2012), a county-level city administered under the jurisdiction of Suzhou.

"The opening of our latest compounding plant represents an important step in the Albis internationalisation strategy,” said CEO Jörg Schottek. The new site, 90 km west of Shanghai, is planned to cater to China-based European companies as well as local enterprises and will turn out “Altech” and “Alcom” compounds, used primarily in the automotive, E&E, white goods and consumer industries.

The compounding plant in the Changshu economic development zone has an initial capacity of 10,000 t/y, but there is room for future expansion. The number of employees currently stands at 450, but a spokesperson told Plasteurope.com the figure is due to increase.

Albis Plastic operates three additional compounding plants – in Hamburg and Zülpich (Germany) and Manchester (UK). In 2012, The German company posted group sales of EUR 753m with a workforce of 960.