Noritake Lanka opens printing plant
Noritake Lanka Porcelain opened their printing plant in Matale last
week with an investment of Rs. 300 million, a statement from the company
said. This plant is equipped with the latest machines and technologies
used in the printing of design transfer sheets for the ceramic industry.
Noritake Lanka Porcelain Executive Consultant Nimal Perera told Daily
News Business that through this project the company has provided 50 job
opportunities and
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An artist’s impression of the new Noritake printing plant |
expects to recruit more in the future. This is a
highly technical profession and a lot of training needs to given for
these new recruits he said. Through this new plant the production
capacity will increase from 100,000 sheets to 150,000 sheets per month.
An additional capacity of 50,000 sheets per month will be exported to
Noritake plants in other countries and other ceramic manufacturers in
the near future.
The company also expects to earn over Rs. 400 million per annum
through this new facility. The company statement said that with the
introduction of high quality products like Bone China and the growth of
the market share in the Japanese upper end market, the necessity of
technological advancement in the printing section was identified by the
top management. Some sophisticated and complex decals which were used
for Bone China decoration were imported from Noritake printing factory
in Nagoya, Japan and the cost of those was extremely high compared to
the Sri Lankan original decals.
The new facility also helps the company to save a large amount of
foreign exchange to the country, he said. During the year of 2008 and
2009, Noritake Lanka Porcelain has accomplished a production of over 200
new items and over 30 new designs in Bone China and regular white
porcelain.
Since the inception, the company went ahead with several expansion
programs by investing Rs. 1500 million to increase the production
facility from 300,000 pieces to one million pieces per month. |
