H B Fuller to build new facility in Egypt

New plant to become a regional production hub for the company’s adhesives business growth in Middle East and Africa

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H B Fuller
H B Fuller to build new facility in Egypt

H B Fuller (NYSE: FUL), a global adhesive manufacturer, recently announced a strategic investment to build a new facility in Cairo to support customers’ increased demand in the fast-growing markets of Egypt, Turkey, Middle East, and Africa. The new factory will become a regional supply hub and a center for manufacturing for adhesives serving the hygiene, packaging, labeling, paper converting, and graphic arts, among other industries.

“Egypt has naturally become a main gateway to the region and with the new plant, we will extend our current leadership in Egypt and Turkey and grow our competitive position across the emerging markets of Middle East and Africa”, said Harsh Gupta, H B Fuller’s managing director for India, Middle East, and Africa. “Our expanded presence in Cairo, with a high-tech site designed with future growth in mind, allows us to double our production capacity and advance our technologies. This investment represents our commitment to better serving our customer base in close proximity to where they operate, for example in the markets for hygiene and packaging.”

H B Fuller’s new Egypt facility to commence full production in 2022

The world-class production facility will fulfill sustainability standards. With a gross area of 37,000 square meter in a two-story building, the planned site will be built at the well-equipped CPC Industrial Park, in the 6th of October industrial city in Cairo, which is considered a strategic location for manufacturing, and will commence full production in the last quarter of 2022.

H B Fuller has had a presence in Egypt since 2008 and this new strategic investment will allow them to grow and create new jobs opportunities in the region and offer improved quality, capacity to serve increased regional needs, access to transportation and logistics advantages, and technical support to ensure a service that can help customers gain business value through their adhesive applications.

Recently, H B Fuller has also strengthened its adhesive business in Africa, with a robust commercial expansion in South Africa serving many of over 30 market segments of the company’s portfolio. Across the globe, the company works with customers in more than 100 countries.

Since 1887, H B Fuller has been a global adhesives provider focusing on perfecting adhesives, sealants, and other specialty chemical products to improve products and lives. With fiscal 2020 net revenue of $2.8 billion (approximately Rs 20,766 crore), H B Fuller’s commitment to innovation brings together people, products, and processes that answer and solve some of the world’s biggest challenges.

2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India

Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.

The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry. While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.

The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.

Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.

Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.

Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.

– Naresh Khanna

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