UFlex Indian expansion picks up with greenfield Karnataka project

Strong Q3 result –– new lines in Poland, Hungary, Nigeria UAE & India

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Ashok Chaturvedi chairman and managing director of UFlex Photo UFlex
Ashok Chaturvedi chairman and managing director of UFlex Photo UFlex

11 February 2020, Noida – UFlex, India’s largest multinational flexible packaging company and a global player in polymer sciences, declared its financial results for the quarter ending December 2020. With packaging’s key role in coping with the Covid-19 pandemic, the company has supported customers and consumers with its solutions in the past year. Witnessed a surge in demand for its multiple businesses while adding clients, it posted strong growth with consolidated net profit surging by 89% YoY to Rs 159.9 crore.

Rajesh Bhatia UFlex
Rajesh Bhatia, Group CFO at UFlex Photo UFlex

UFlex announced domestic and international expansions for its packaging films business together with the results. Rajesh Bhatia, Group CFO at UFlex, said, “The highlights of this quarter are the commissioning of the brownfield BOPET film line in Poland with a capacity of 45,000 TPA. The trial runs for our BOPP plant in Hungary and BOPET plant in Nigeria have already commenced and both the plants are expected to be commissioned soon. In India, we have not expanded the capacity of packaging films for the last 16 years and are now setting up greenfield BOPET and CPP lines in Karnataka [in South India] to meet the growing demand. We are also expanding outside India with plans to set up a brownfield CPP film line at our UAE plant that will add a production capacity of 18,000 TPA.”

Ashok Chaturvedi, chairman and managing director of UFlex, said, “UFlex has played a pivotal role in providing packaged products to the end consumers during the pandemic. In line with our vision to go glocal and serve the last mile with our best-in-class innovative and sustainable solutions, we are scaling up our international and domestic operations. Driven by a robust order book and consistent market growth, we are also doubling the manufacturing capacity of our Aseptic Liquid Packaging plant in Sanand.”

UFlex becomes the largest BOPET manufacturer in the EU

The earlier capacity of the group’s packaging films in Poland was 30,000 TPA. With an additional 10.4-meter wide BOPET line with a capacity of 45,000 TPA being commissioned, FlexFilms is the largest BOPET manufacturer in European Union. 

Its current combined capacity of BOPET, BOPP, and CPP packaging films is 92,000 TPA in India. The new lines to be added in South India will have a cumulative production capacity of 63,000 TPA. The UAE plant that currently houses a 22,000 TPA BOPET line will add 18,000 TPA capacity once the new CPP line is commissioned.

Our view – Real leadership will mean sustainability solutions

The pandemic year has been hectic for Uflex with its multiple business lines, including its engineering business, its chemicals business, and its flexible packaging materials businesses making several innovations and breakthroughs. In a time of intense constraints, the company has exploited the strengths in its various divisions built up over many years of comprehensively looking at the flexible packaging ecosystem both locally and globally. 

Entering a significant expansion phase as it is now, UFlex is aware of flexible packaging and films’ sustainability issues. The company that is continually looking for practical answers and solutions can build on its research and development successes in the past year and show global leadership in recyclable packaging solutions.

In some of the versions of this story, the caption for Ashok Chaturvedi chairman and managing director of UFlex was wrongly given. The error was inadvertent and is regretted with apologies.

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