India's UFLEX Group starts work on US packaging film plant

Flex Films, the global films business division of the India-based UFLEX Group, formally launched construction activities at the site of its proposed greenfield facility in the US at Elizabethtown, Hardin County, Kentucky with a traditional Indian groundbreaking ceremony on October 28.
 
Flex Films will invest around US$90 million in each of two phases, the first of which will see the setting up of an upscale and high-quality 180,000 sq ft facility that will house an 8.7m-wide, 500m/min state-of-the-art biaxially-oriented polyethylene terephthalate (BOPET) film line, one of the world’s largest, and a plasma-enhanced high-barrier metalizer that will be commissioned by the end of 2012. With an annual capacity of over 30,000 tonnes (about 67million lbs) of film, this line will be larger than any other film line presently operating in the US and will create about 125 new jobs. Capacity will be doubled and 125 more new jobs created soon after the first line is started up. 
 
Flex Films is one of the world’s leading producers of packaging films and is the world’s largest supplier of polyester films for packaging applications. It has an extensive global footprint and its products are used in more than 110 countries. It already operates state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in India, Dubai, Mexico and Egypt, with new facilities being constructed in Poland and the US, which will be commissioned in 2012. More international facilities are being planned and it expects to be operating out of at least 12 countries by 2020.