Vietnam: Wittmann establishes subsidiary; Vetaphone installs corona treater for Rang Dong

In recent years, Vietnam has seen a flurry of investments in the country, given its market attraction, especially with the plastics industry in Vietnam already showing continuous growth in recent years. Recent investments are from machinery maker Wittmann Group, headquartered in Austria, and Danish corona treater technology supplier Vetaphone that has sold its machinery to various packaging companies in Vietnam.

“Vietnam is growing rapidly more and more significant as a production location for the injection moulding industry,” emphasises Michael Wittmann, owner/CEO of the Wittmann Group. “We are now responding to this trend by establishing Wittmann Vietnam Co Ltd in Ho Chi Minh City. This will enable us to serve our local customers there even more effectively and to provide flexible support for the development of new production facilities. With this action, we are further strengthening our customer base in Southeast Asia.”

Numerous global players are building up new production sites in Vietnam, including many companies already using injection moulding machines, robots and auxiliary equipment from Wittmann in other countries.

Wittmann adds it is now further developing its already significant customer base, having entered the Vietnamese market since 2015. The company has been present in Vietnam with a local agency, and its cooperation with Tao Bangkok (Vietnam) Co. will be continued. In this way, Wittmann says it will provide optimal continuity and security for its customers in the region.

Giang An Le is the General Manager of the new subsidiary. He will now further expand the company’s sales and service network in Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh City is situated in southern Vietnam and thus in an important centre of the plastics industry. The corporate headquarters of the new subsidiary are located in the Tan Binh District, in the immediate vicinity of the international airport. This makes Wittmann in Vietnam also easy to reach for international customers.

With a total of nine subsidiaries and additional agencies, Wittmann says it has strong presence throughout all of Asia and ensures short distances to its customers in all industrial centres. In China, Wittmann operates its own production plant for robots and auxiliary equipment thus shortening delivery times for its Asian customers and simplifying logistics.

Simultaneously, the group has also strengthened its presence in the Philippines. There, AustroPlast based in Noveleta near Manila has been engaged as the new sales partner for the entire Wittmann product portfolio. AustroPlast has more than 20 years of experience in the Philippine plastics processing industry.

Meanwhile, in a move that marks a distinct policy shift on investment, the Asian giant of flexible packaging Rang Dong has installed its first Vetaphone corona treater on a Shaanxi Beiren laminator at the production plant on the Tan Do Industrial Park in Long An Province, Vietnam. The company is part of the Rang Dong Plastics Group that was established in 1960, and its vast production site covers 8.3 ha and employs many hundreds of people.

Explaining the new policy, Vice Director of the Investment Department, Dang Tien Hoan says he first encountered Vetaphone via Nguyen Anh Tu (aka Max) at Song Song, an agency based in nearby Ho Chi Minh City.

Song Song represents several leading manufacturers in the print and converting sectors, including Vetaphone, the Danish company that invented corona and has pioneered its development over the past 70 years.

With more than ten Italian manufactured corona stations installed on a variety of laminating and coating lines at Rang Dong, the decision to switch allegiance was not an easy one to make, the company claims.

But the accessibility offered to the operator by the ‘slide-out-slide-in’ electrode cassette on the Vetaphone treater, which makes for simple maintenance, allied to the superior control offered by the iCorona generator was too convincing to ignore, and with local support only a short distance away, the decision to change was made.

The Vetaphone treater is a VE1C-D (4C) model, with a 1,320 mm web width and an operational speed to match the 200 m/min laminating line. Used principally on 25-micron PET and CPP substrates that require a minimum dyne level of 38 for processing, the treater has a maximum power rating of 5kW.

Speaking for Vetaphone, Sales Manager Asia Pacific, Holger Selenka stated: “We are delighted to have secured the order from such a well-known and respected company as Rang Dong. Their confidence in our product to perform consistently and give a boost to productivity is a reflection of the unmatched knowledge and R&D that goes into Vetaphone technology.”

Output at the Long An site includes rotogravure printing in up to 12-colours, laminating up to seven-layer films, and four-way stretch film, for a diverse product catalogue that includes middle pressing, zipper, vertical, liquid cover, and vacuum bags as well as shrink sleeves. The plant produces more than 13.5 sq m of flexible packaging per year and over 10,000 tonnes of shrink film for markets such as food, confectionary, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and agriculture.

The company currently exports to the US, Japan, Europe, Korea, Thailand, Myanmar, Nigeria, and the Middle East.

Vetaphone has previously done installations for Vina Aus Labels, a converter of labels and flexible packaging with an annual turnover of US$55 million, which installed corona treatment technology on an Indian manufactured Windsor five-layer blown extrusion line.

It has also installed its machinery for flexible packaging Nam Kyung (NKC), a South Korean processor that set up a facility the Binh Duong Province, some 50 km north of Ho Chi Minh City, in 2009.

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