Ahlstom completes EUR 28 million capacity
expansion project in South Korea
On October 21, Ahstrom Corporation, a leader in high performance fibor based solutions, celebrated the inauguration of a second production line and new impregnation line at its Hyun Poong plant in South Korea.
The Hyun Poong plant was founded in 1987 and is part of Ahlstrom's Fiber Composites division. The new investment enables the Hyun Poong facility to manufacture both filtration media and nonwovens for the growing Asian market. Its existing production line will continue to serve the filtration market.
Both filtration and nonwoven markets offer promising growth opportunities for Alhstrom. The filtration market is estimated to grow approximately 5-6% annually, the fastest growth seen in South America and Asia. For Alhstrom, sales volumes increased by 7.5% in the first half of 2004. The market opportunity for filtration media and nonwovens reaches approximately EUR 15 billion. Currently, Ahlstrom is number five in the global nonwovens market, with an ambition to be amoung the top three.
President and CEO, Jukka Moisio, said of the project "Many of our customers are expanding their operations geographically and Ahlstrom aims to serve them on a global basis. The new production line in the fast growing Asia Pacific region will help us achieve that".