Plastic pipes producer Pipelife (Wiener Neudorf / Austria; www.pipelife.com) has announced that it will withdraw totally from the Iberian market, leading to the closure of its production and trading activities in Spain and trading activities in Portugal. The company said that despite significant restructuring over recent years in reaction to a dramatic fall in demand in the countries there is no indication of a recovery in the medium term explaning why it is forced to close its subsidiaries.

Workers at the company’s Malpica de Zaragoza facility in northern Spain are presently implementing partial shutdowns at the plant in reaction to the planned closure. Angel Bozal, chairman of the plant’s workers’ committee, said the action is to be escalated into a full indefinite strike. In the meantime, the workers committee is reported to be attempting to convince Solvay (Brussels / Belgium; www.solvay.com), 50:50 co-owner of Pipelife with Austrian construction specialist Wienerberger (Vienna; www.wienerberger.com), that the plant is still viable. The closure of the facility, which is thought to have been losing money for the past three years, will affect 104 workers at the site.