By Jaroslaw Adamowski
Mantsala, Finland — Recticel’s Finnish subsidiary has purchased land in Mantsala, in South Finland, to build and open a rigid foam panel plant.
According to information obtained by local paper Mantsalan Uutiset, the 40,000 m2 plot, was acquired for EUR 640,000, the paper said. In addition to this, the Belgian PU foam maker signed a deal to reserve an adjacent land plot of 46,000 m2 for which Recticel’s Finnish offshoot will pay a fee of about EUR 13,000/year, the paper added.
The investment will create some 35 new jobs in its first phase. Once the plant reaches a full output capacity, it is to be operated by a workforce of 'several hundred' employees, according to the Finnish paper. The value of the forthcoming project was not disclosed.
Under the plan, construction work on the factory is to begin in the third quarter of 2017, but, to date, the company has not obtained an environmental impact permit that it needs to start building.
The company’s Finnish subsidiary, Recticel Oy, is based in Kuovola, Southeastern Finland, where the Belgian manufacturer also owns a production facility. That plant mainly supplies the furniture and mattress industry. Recticel has been active in the Finnish market since 2007 when it bought the flexible foam units Espe and Ewona from Finlayson.
