Skanem moves to Asia and ties up Thai factory deal

Skanem, one of Europe’s largest self-adhesive label producers, will start to build a new factory in Thailand later this month to take part of the East Asian market growth. This is also a step further in Skanem’s strategy to become a global supplier.

The deal to build a 4,200 square meter factory on a 13,000 square meter site at Amata Nakorn, 55km south of Bangkok and 30 minutes from the Suvarnabhumi airport which opens this fall, was sealed this week by Skanem owner and CEO, Ole Rugland.

Building work will start within days and it is hoped the factory will be in production by New Year.

Mr Rugland said: ‘Last year we acquired Skanem Introl and Skanem Introl-Print, based respectively in Poznan (Poland) and Moscow. Now we are moving into the Asian market and Thailand is an ideal base for us.’

The Asian market for self-adhesive labels is expanding at 20 per cent per year, and forecasts are for the Asian markets to represent 37 per cent of global label consumption by 2010.

Mr Rugland said: ‘We began looking at the Bangkok area a year ago. We have already secured our first contract and we look forward developing our relations with potential customers in the nearest future.’

A new organization will be established during the next months.

Skanem today operates labeling plants in seven countries - Norway, Sweden, Denmark, UK, Germany, Poland and Russia. It provides label solutions for some of the world’s largest companies. It employs 1100 people in 12 printing plants and the group’s total turnover in 2005 was Euro 156 million.