Thursday, July 12, 2012 -
Austrian plastics firm Starlinger said on Thursday it has opened an office in the Uzbek capital Tashkent to capitalize on the strong economic growth currently underway in Central Asia.
Starlinger & Co develops machinery that manufactures complete lines of woven plastic bags and recycling plants for plastics.
Yuldosh Kazakov, the firm’s chief representative in the region, said that years of economic expansion in the region have had a positive effect on the textile packaging industry.
“Starlinger sees a strong potential for growth [of the industry] in this region – comparable to Russia, were seven new clients were acquired within the last 18 months,” the media outlet cement.com web site on Thursday reported Kazakov as saying.
The executive noted that Starlinger’s first sale in Central Asia was to an Uzbek-Swiss joint venture, Leading Force, which purchased a production line in 2010 for Starlinger’s specialized sacks.
Leading Force now produces 35 million units per year, which it supplies to companies in Central Asia involved in the cement, fertilizer, and flour industries, Kazakov said.
Starlinger & Co is one of four firms that comprise Starlinger Group, a global engineering company based in the Austrian capital Vienna.