Thailand-based industrial conglomerate Siam Cement hopes to jack up 5-10% sales out of its paper and packaging this year, banking on demand from Southeast Asian countries.
Domestic growth, however, is expected to be around 1-2%.
Siam Cement president Roongrote Rangsiyopash was quoted by Reuters as saying: "Domestic demand is not quite good, while growth in Vietnam should be around 5% and 6-7% in the Philippines."
Rangsiyopash estimated that the domestic demand would put up a better performance during the second half of the year. During that period, the Southeast Asian market would post a growth of 5%.
Siam Cement had clocked sales worth $2bn from paper and packaging business in 2014, contributing 15% to its overall sales. However, the profit went south by 30% from January to March as compared to the corresponding period previous year.
Besides, the company is pumping in $122.22m to fund the expansion of its packaging paper capacity in Vietnam with an annual output of 243,000 tons.
Expected to commence operations in 2017, the expansion will raise Siam Cement's annual capacity to 2.6 million tons across region.
Earlier this month, the company has rebranded SCG Paper into SCG Packaging to focus on manufacturing of high quality packaging products, including non-paper based flexible packaging products.
Image: Siam Cement had clocked sales worth $2bn from paper and packaging business in 2014. Photo: courtesy of The Siam Cement Public Company Limited.
