A typical scenario in Europe today: a company announces plans to shut down a plant at home and build a new one abroad. In December, Danish plastics converter Rosti (Farum; www.rosti.com) said it would build a new plant in Suzhou / China. More or less simultaneously, it closed a plant in Skive / Denmark, making 39 employees redundant.

The loss-making Skive facility belongs to Rosti Technical Plastics (TP), which is engaged in precision injection moulding and medical technology. Attempts to put the Danish production site back on a sound footing had failed, a company spokesman told PIE. The plant´s European operations have been shifted mainly to Bialystok / Poland, but also to The Netherlands and Scotland.

Rosti TP itself, which has facilities in Mexico and the US in addition to China, achieved a financial turnaround in 2004 after several years in the red. "Suzhou Alpha", as the new Chinese facility is being called, will combine two of the previous three local sites and will offer considerable potential for expansion, the company said.

The Danish plastics converter, part of the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group (www.maersk.com), a EUR 30 bn shipping, transport, oil and gas, commerce and industrial conglomerate with sales of EUR 200m and more than 2,500 employees, now aims to move farther up into the ranks of internationally active companies. If the latest moves are any indication, it plans to do this largely outside Europe.

At the beginning of January, Rosti revealed plans to sell five plants in its bottles and containers division to Norwegian packaging group Polimoon (Oslo; www.polimoon.com). The deal includes four sites in Germany (Neumünster, Witzenhausen, Görzke and Winsen) and one at Glostrup / Denmark, with a total of 290 employees and annual sales of around EUR 40m.