Formosa Chemicals & Fibre setting up yarn factory in Vietnam

Taipei, June 3, 2003 (CENS)--Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp. (FCF), a large local textile and chemical manufacturer, is establishing a factory of polyester products in Vietnam, with yarn spinning to begin in September this year.

A core affiliate of the Formosa Plastics Group, FCF is setting up a factory of polyester fiber, yarn, and compound in Vietnam to capitalize on the country's advantages of low labor cost and no quotas for exports to the U.S. and Europe.

The factory will have daily production capacity of 750 metric tons of polyester fiber, 115 metric tons of polyester filament yarn, 225 metric tons of polyester staple fiber, and 410 metric tons of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) compound (for making PET bottles). The factory will, by product item, partially and successively come into operation, with the complete operation scheduled for the second quarter of next year.

The spinning equipment of 80,000 spindles, among all production lines, will first come into operation in the coming September with monthly production output of 6,500 batches of rayon staple fiber, polyester staple fiber, CVC (chief value cotton) yarn, and yarn of other kinds in total. Since half of the spinning spindles have been installed, the trial production in small volume will being this month.

The spinning capacity of 80,000 spindles is still not enough for an economy production scale, CFC pointed out. Therefore, the company will expand the spinning capacity and set up downstream factories to move toward integrated production in the future.

In addition to CFC, the local company Tainan Spinning Co., Ltd. Operates the currently largest spinning factory of 170,000 spindles in Vietnam, and recently decided to add 100,000 spindles. Moreover, other local spinners including Chung Shing Textile Co., Ltd. And Lien Ming Textile Co., Ltd. Have expanded or will expand their production capacities in Vietnam. Taiwanese enterprises' aggregate production capacity in Vietnam will reach estimated 500,000 spinning spindles in future, taking up over one-third of the country's total.