CMW’s new factory in China for high-tech industrial coatings

Cashew of Japan, Manfield of Hong Kong and Weilburger of Germany, partners in the three-way joint venture, CMW Holding Ltd, attended the celebrations to mark the official opening on Nov. 19, 2007 of the new plant of CMW Coatings (Wuxi) Ltd. Located in the Yangtze River Delta the factory is in Jiangsu province, approximately 120 kilometers from Shanghai.

Chairman of the board Tim Rand referred to the event as the culmination of seven years combined effort by the three partners, with Weilburger and Cashew operating worldwide to support CMW by developing specification business with global customers while Manfield expanded operations throughout China.

CMW’s business operations had begun in 2000 with toll manufacturing by Pinefield Chemical in Shenzhen. Five years later the company built its own manufacturing facility in Guangzhou. This improved support and service to customers in Southern China and the business grew rapidly. This latest milestone provided fresh impetus in the supply of specialist products and service to business in Eastern and Northern China.

Addressing the invited audience of customers and suppliers, Yuen Shu Wah, managing director of the CMW Group said, “Thanks to the support of our investors, top-quality, innovative products with technology from Germany, Japan and Hong Kong are made available to our clients; PVC-free AC/ UV coating systems, anti-bacteria UV varnishes, soft feel coatings, UV Pad-printing inks, water-based plastic coatings and water-based baking enamels, to name just a few.

“Our corporate policy is to ensure consistency in all CMW activities in China regardless of the location of factories or service centers. With proper co-ordination and concerted effort, we are able to provide the best professional service to our customers.

“Through its capable management team and with the close support by our distributor CTCL and business partner Cashew, CMW Wuxi has achieved excellent results and has made a profit in less than one year since operations began.”

CMW Wuxi employs 380 people on its 20,000 m2 site and has an annual production capacity of 4,700 tonnes with a maximum batch size of 3,000 kilos. All operations of the company are fully integrated into an ERP system.

CMW is a leading supplier of high-end factory-applied coatings. It has an established market position in non-stick and high temperature coatings to the many cookware, bakeware and domestic appliance manufacturers located in the neighbouring Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong provinces. It also specializes in coatings for plastics for teltronics (TV, audio, video) and mobile phones for global customers in Shanghai, Tianjin and Beijing. The mobile phone market continues to boom and recent approvals for supply to Sony Ericsson and Motorola point to this remaining an area of accelerated future growth. Planning has already begun for second phase construction at Wuxi designed to double production capacity in two years.