03/11/2016 14h49

Asahi Glass announces plan for R$700m plant

Valor International

Asahi Glass Company announced the construction of its second Brazilian plant, with a price tag of R$700 million including land, construction and equipment investments. The unit will make glass for housing and infrastructure projects, and is slated to start operating in late 2018. The planned daily capacity is 850 tonnes of flat glass, but the location in the Southeast region will only be defined in the next two weeks. Jean-François Heris, global president of construction products, says the company is still betting on the Brazilian market potential and based the decision on fundamentals like demographic trends. “We believe things can change much more quickly than people believe,” he says. Asahi Glass entered the Brazilian market in 2011 with a São Paulo factory producing 600 tonnes a day for the automotive, construction and decoration sectors.