The company said last week that its Rayong facility will gain an extra 5,000 tons of shrink film capacity when a new €5 million tentering line for shrink-label films comes on stream in early 2007.

Klockner Pentaplast makes transverse-direction oriented shrink-label films used in full-body sleeves on bottles and to wrap wine caps. It claims to be the only company to use its advanced stretching technology in Asia, which allows for high quality printing on labels, including 360 degree graphics.

This kind of packaging is still rarely seen in most Asian markets but is expected to be increasingly used as food brands become more important and as tamper-proof packaging grows in demand.

"Our Asian shrink-film expansion will allow international converters and brand companies to source identical high-quality films on three continents," said Joachim Kreuzburg, president of Klockner Pentaplast.

It will also provide Asian customers with quality, regionally produced film and "further enhance new local product development capabilities", said Kreuzberg.

Klockner Pentaplast will also add 6000 tons of polyester film capacity to the company's existing Rayong production, at a cost of €3.5 million.

Servicing the high-end markets of food and electronics packaging, as well as shrink-label films, this additional film capacity is targeted to come on-line in December 2006, it said.

"We are investing at this time to further support our customers' growth requirements," added Kreuzberg.