Swiss plastics processor Georg Fischer (GF, Schaffhausen; www.georgfischer.com) once again is strengthening its business in China by inaugurating two new plants. After commissioning its tenth facility in the People’s Republic just last year – see Plasteurope.com of 19.08.2010 – the group’s GF Piping Systems division has announced that Chinaust (Zouzhou, Hebei Province / China; www.chinaust.com) – its 50:50 joint venture with Lingyun Industrial Corporation (Zhuozhou, Hebei Province; www.lingyun.com.cn/en) – has opened a new pipe manufacturing plant in Haining, near Shanghai. The 19,000 m² facility comes at an investment cost of CHF 12.8m (about EUR 10.4m), and will turn out PE pipes for gas and water distribution as well as corrugated drainage pipes with a diameter of up to three metres.

In addition, GF’s AgieCharmilles business unit, specialised in tool and mould manufacture, announced it had opened a plant producing milling machines in Changzhou. The facility, with capacity to turn out 1,000 machines per year, came at an investment cost of CHF 11m.

Commenting on the two new sites, Georg Fischer CEO Yves Serra said, “This inauguration shows our strong commitment as well as our strong confidence in the future development of the Chinese market.” GF operates more than 20 companies throughout China, 14 of them focused on production. In 2010, the Swiss group generated about CHF 500m from its China business – equivalent to about one-seventh of GF’s overall revenues.