Following the success of its moulding plant in Brno in the Czech Republic, Carclo Technical Plastics (GB-Wakefield; www.carclo.ctp.co.uk) is looking for another site in eastern Europe. Possible locations, which must be within three hours drive of Brno, include the northern outskirts of Prague and Hungary.

Business development director Michael Johnson says the Brno moulding and assembly plant now has its full complement of injection moulding machines and the volume of business is growing steadily. It has two main types of customer: UK companies seeking lower cost components and local customers in eastern Europe, such as Flextronics (www.flextronics.com) and Black & Decker. Market opportunities now demand that another factory is established, particularly as CTP bases its activities on a model that has no more than 20-25 injection machines within an inner area that is surrounded by the materials handling, assembly and warehousing activities.

Johnson expects the new plant to be operational within six months, possibly sooner. One option would be to equip it with machines currently installed in its UK factories, where, in most cases, business volumes are declining. Overall CTP has some 400 moulding machines at 16 sites in Europe, seven in the US and one each in China and Singapore. Plastics processing, targeting the automotive, teletronics and optical/medical markets, provides 80% of the parent company´s GBP 130m turnover.