Essel Pack To Double Capacity Of China Arm

Essel Packaging is planning to double the capacity of its Chinese plant Essel Packaging (Guangzhou) from the existing 30 million tubes per annum to about 60 million tubes per annum. Essel also plans to increase equity from $3 million to $7 million by June 1999.

The company in China was established as a wholly-owned arm.

Presently the company's marketing department has booked orders for 11 million tubes which as per the present capacity is equivalent to about 4 months capacity. Speaking to the Business Standard, Cyrus Bagwadia, executive director, Essel Packaging, said "Product innovation will be the key to our growth." The company has established a new facility called 'technology innovation centre', which has been entrusted with creating newer laminates and tubes to enable it to enter different application segments such as foods.

 

Essel is also working on a new project which Bagwadia describes as 'personalised tubes'. The concept, he says, is to identify the product through the packaging. Citing the example of Coke, he said Coke bottles all over the world have a distinct shape and size helping one identify the product immediately. Essel is also trying to come out with tubes of varying shapes which can be identified with the product packaged in it.

At present, tubes are not differentiated by any particular shape as all are cylindrical with slight variations. Essel currently has a tube laminate unit in Vasinad, tubing units at Wada, Murbad, and Silvassa. It also has a plant in Egypt which is again a wholly-owned arm. It has received approvals to install plants in Nepal and Turkey.