News

Wittmann opens expanded HQ
Wittmann Canada celebrated the opening of its new Canadian headquarters in Richmond Hill, Ont., last week. The 40,000 sq foot facility doubles the space available at the previous plant and offices, which were also in Richmond Hill.
The new building is Wittmann's global headquarters for R&D, design, and manufacturing of blending equipment. It also has a product and engineering systems department, sales offices, the department handling robots and automation systems, a showroom for demonstrations, and a training room.
The opening was attended by customers and company executives, including Wittmann Kunststoffgeraete GmbH general manager Michael Wittmann, David Preusse, president of Wittmann USA, Karl Schmidt, Consul and Trade Commissioner, Consulate General of Austria, and the vice-consul and deputy trade commissioner, Drazen Miletic.
In their remarks, Rob Miller  acknowledged the contributions made by employees whilst Michael Wittmann underlined the company's long term commitment to the Canadian market. Manufacturing in North America will continue to be split between Canada and the U.S. Several employees were also recognised during the event for their long term commitment to the company: Gord Stowar, 20 years; Mark Amos, 15 years; Adrian Barell, 10 years; and Christian Weiss, Mark Hobson, Li Liu and Wesley Walsh, five years each.
www.wittmann-canada.com

Ribbon-cutting, left to right: Karl Schmidt, consul and trade commissioner, Consulate General of Austria; Reza Moridi, M.P.P., parliamentary assistant, Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities; Wittmann Canada president Rob Miller; Wittmann Kunststoffgeraete GmbH general manager Michael Wittmann; and David Barrow, Mayor of Richmond Hill.

Little cheer for manufacturing in budget
The industry is disappointed in federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's budget, released on Tuesday. While it does extend the Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance for an additional three years, for example, the two year depreciation will be available for only one additional year and then switches to 40 percent and 30 percent for the remainder of the program.
"In a budget loaded with a variety of carefully targeted tax cuts and spending initiatives, there is disappointingly little relief for plastics and other manufacturers," observed CPIA president Serge Lavoie. "This is not a budget that goes out of its way to recognise the problems faced by the manufacturing sector and it probably signals this government's intention to let manufacturing activity decline as a result of our strong currency and increased global competition."
The capital cost allowance falls short of industry's request for two year depreciation over the full five years of the program, which was a recommendation among the 22 contained in an all-party report on manufacturing released last year by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.
The SR&ED tax credit system is being adjusted, with a 10 percent allowance for international collaborative research. The expenditure limit for R&D spending by Canadian owned privately held companies goes up from $2-million to $3-million, and the upper limit for taxable capital and income phase-out are up to $50-million and $700,000 respectively. The total benefit of these measures will be $70-million through 2009, which again is short of industry recommendations to make Scientific Research & Experimental tax credits refundable, to extend the credit to pre-commercialisation activity, and provide an allowance for collaborative research.
"The minister announced a new R&D innovation fund worth $250-million over the next five years," Lavoie adds. "How this fund will be targeted isn't clear, although reference was made to green technologies which may or may not limit its application to the plastics value chain."
Lastly, there were no initiatives to provide an employers' training tax credit creditable against Employment Insurance premiums. This, too, was an industry recommendation supported by the manufacturing study.
"To echo the sentiments of Jayson Meyers, president and CEO of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters," Lavoie notes, "members of the Canadian Manufacturing Coalition, of which CPIA is a member, have a lot more work ahead convincing this government that our sector is innovative and adds considerable economic value to the country."
www.cpia.ca

StatsCan releases 2007 figures
Statistics Canada has released data for 2007 shipments, imports, and exports, by industry.
The overall plastic products industry showed a decline in shipments of six percent and a decline in exports of seven percent. Almost all subsectors showed a drop in shipments. The only exception was urethanes and other foam products, which grew strongly. Subsectors that showed declines larger than the industry average were: Plumbing fixtures and Other plastic products.
Among the closely related industries, machinery shipments and exports both showed strong growth. Mould shipments grew strongly, but exports declined markedly. This, StatsCan says, appears to be an inconsistency, and the data may be revised later.
For resins, both shipments and exports declined. This reflects the closure of some polymer manufacturing plants during the year.
The data is shown below in billions of dollars.  The change compared to 2006 is shown in brackets.

Plastic products
Plastic products – total
Shipments: $20.1 billion (-6%)
Imports: $7.3 billion (+1%)
Exports: $8.6 billion (-7%)

Bags
Shipments: $1.9 billion (-1%)
Imports: $0.47 billion (+12%)
Exports: $0.49 billion (-7%)

Unsupported film and sheet
Shipments: $1.6 billion (-1%)
Imports: $1.4 billion (-8%)
Exports: $1.3 billion (-8%)

Unsupported profiles
Shipments: $1.1 billion (-2%)
Imports: $0.45 billion (-7%)
Exports: $0.49 billion (-15%)

Pipe and fittings
Shipments: $1.3 billion (-2%)
Imports: $0.28 billion (-1%)
Exports: $0.28 billion (-10%)

Laminated plate and sheet
Shipments: $0.48 billion (-6%)
Imports: $0.56 billion (+1%)
Exports: $0.47 billion (+2%)

Polystyrene foam products
Shipments: $0.93 billion (-3%)
Imports: $0.07 billion (+7%)
Exports: $0.20 billion (-9%)

Other foam products
Shipments: $1.1 billion (+12%)
Imports: $0.27 billion (+0.4%)
Exports: $0.10 billion (-15%)

Bottles
Shipments: $0.89 billion (-2%)
Imports: $0.40 billion (-3%)
Exports: $0.35 billion (+0.4%)

Plumbing fixtures
Shipments: $0.87 billion (-14%)
Imports: $0.07 billion (+18%)
Exports: $0.09 billion (-21%)

Auto parts
Shipments: $3.5 billion (-6%)
Imports: $0.20 billion (-2%)
Exports: $2.0 billion (-1%)

Other plastic products
Shipments: $6.4 billion (-14%)
Imports: $3.1 billion (+6%)
Exports: $2.9 billion (-10%)
 

Related industries
Synthetic resins and rubbers
shipments: $9.7 billion (-5%)
exports: $6.9 billion (-4%)
imports: $6.2 billion (-7%)

Plastics processing machinery
Shipments: $1.09 billion (+6%)
Imports: $0.53 billion (-2%)
Exports: $1.06 billion (+7%)

Moulds
Shipments: $1.4 billion (+7%)
Imports: $0.44 billion (-4%)
Exports: $0.87 billion (-16%).

www.ic.gc.ca/plastics

Dow realigns its businesses
Dow Chemical Co. (Midland, Mich.) is realigning a number of businesses to a newly created business group, Dow Portfolio Optimization. Each of the businesses within the new group has been earmarked for strategic evaluation, with the goal of defining how best to maximise its long-term value to the company, whether through realignment to other Dow businesses, joint ventures or divestitures. 
"Within any organisation, systematic portfolio management is fundamental to a company's evolution and sits right at the heart of long-term shareholder value creation," says Andrew N. Liveris, Dow's chairman and chief executive officer. "Our newly created portfolio brings this highly important activity squarely into the spotlight, ensuring we drive it forward with discipline, with diligence and with due speed."
George Biltz, who currently heads the Company's Specialty Plastics and Elastomers portfolio, has been appointed business group president of the new portfolio, which will include Saran products and specialty films, synthetic rubber, polycarbonate, compounds and blends and specialty copolymers.  Going forward, the company expects to align other Dow businesses to the portfolio as they are assessed for strategic alignment with Dow's transformational strategy.
www.dow.com

Plast-Ex Summit lineup
The roster of speakers for the Plast-Ex Summit on May 22 is starting to shape up. The one-day event, held at the Rogers Center in Toronto (formerly the SkyDome), will cover macroeconomic issues in its morning session, and will focus on plastics industry-specific topics in the afternoon.
Confirmed speakers now include Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts
Manufacturers' Association of Canada and Jonathon Fischer, president of hot-runners manufacturer Mold-Masters Ltd. (Georgetown, Ont.), and Jayson Myers, president of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association.
Also, former NOVA Chemicals vice-president Paul Clark, who consults with India's giant Reliance Group, will give an overview of how India's plastics industry is evolving.
The Great Lakes Manufacturing Council is also contributing a speaker. This council represents industry, non-governmental organisations, trade associations, organised labour, educational and financial institutions, economic development groups, chambers of commerce, governments that actually touch one of the Great Lakes.
The full line-up of speakers will be announced in the next few weeks.
The Summit is designed to address the crisis in manufacturing in Canada, and consider the options for maintaining prosperity in a radically changed world. The event includes lunch, dinner and a networking session, plus a Blue Jays baseball game in the evening.
www.plastexsummit.ca

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Our last poll – results Many processors are being bought up or combined into larger conglomerates as a way of achieving economies of scale in a changed market. Do you feel: This rarely brings about positive results 22% This can be a necessary move in a globalised marketplace 65% We just hope our company gets bought in the next three months 13%