Sidel (Le Havre / France; www.sidel.com) is investing EUR 35m in a new plant in China to strengthen its equipment supply position in the country’s beverage market. The 40,000m² facility in Beijing is expected to come on stream in mid-2008. The unit will be Sidel’s first multi-product facility, assembling equipment from blow moulding to palletising to produce bottling lines for the Chinese market.

Sidel has been manufacturing products in China since 1995, when it opened its filler manufacturing plant in Beijing and its tooling centre for bottle design and mould design and manufacture for PET bottles in Shanghai.

The Chinese beverage market is one of the world’s fastest growing with sales increasing by around 7% annually. It is also, Sidel says, one of the most competitive. Sidel’s strategy in China is to increase proximity to its customers to better understand and respond to their needs. Its objective, according to company president Gérard Stricher, “is to become the undisputed leader on the Chinese bottling line market”.