www.chinaview.cn
Jul 09,2009
Sweden-based packaging giant Tetra Pak has opened a new 60-million-euro (more than 78 million U.S. dollars) converting plant in Hohhot, the capital city of Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region.
The company regarded China as one of the fastest growing markets and a strategic market for the liquid food package solutions provider in future, China Daily quoted Dennis Jonsson, president and CEO of the Tetra Pak Group, as saying.
The Hohhot plant will mainly manufacture Tetra Brik Aseptic (TBA) and Tetra Fino Aseptic (TFA) cartons with a designed capacity of 11 billion packs per year.
It is also expected to help enhance delivery efficiency to Tetra Pak's two key clients, Yili and Mengniu, China's leading dairy producers. Its other clients include big brands such as Sanyuan, Huiyuan and Wanglaoji.
The Swedish firm now has four aseptic carton packaging manufacturing bases -- in Foshan, Kunshan, Beijing and Hohhot. These can cumulatively produce around 50 billion packs annually.
Jonsson said the company had invested more than 2.7 billion yuan in China so far. The Chinese market accounted for nearly 10 percent of Tetra Pak's global business in terms of revenue in 2008,while the figure was almost 20 percent by number of packs produced.
The company has operations in more than 160 nations and regions, and its market share in China's aseptic carton packaging sector is75 percent currently.
China's dairy industry grew by 20 percent over the past decade, according to Dairy Association of China. Every Chinese on average consumes 30 kilograms of dairy products annually, much less than the world average of 120 kilograms and 300 kilograms for developed nations, which indicates huge growth potential for the dairy industry here.