Albéa, a manufacturer of packaging for beauty, personal care, oral care and pharmaceutical products, opened a new facility in Suzhou, near Shanghai. This new facility is the only Albéa site to house the complete scope of the group's core offerings: tubes, cosmetic rigid packaging (mascaras, lipgloss, compacts, bottles) and dispensing systems - each in a dedicated building. The company says the site offers customers faster speed to market, flexibility and supply chain efficiency.

Albéa Suzhou is highly automated, with integrated decoration and assembly capabilities. The new plant draws on the group's 25-year presence in China to serve Albéa's fast-growing local, regional and global customers.

The new 30,000 m² facility represents an investment of $14 million. It was built within 15 months to optimize Albéa's industrial footprint in China following its acquisition of Rexam Personal Care in January 2013. It currently has about 800 employees.

Albéa's footprint in China includes four other facilities (in Zhongshan, Shenzhen and Shanghai), each focused on a specific kind of packaging, as well as two sales offices.

"The synergies between Albéa's five industrial sites in China will enhance the company's ability to meet a diverse range of customer needs, while providing a strong foundation for sustainable growth in a vibrant region," the company declared in a news release. 

Albéa says it is the world's largest range of beauty and personal care packaging - with a focus on plastic and laminate tubes, mascaras, lipsticks, samplers and foam pumps; along with fragrance and skincare dispensing pumps, fragrance and lotion caps, compacts, lipgloss, promotional items and accessories.

The company has about 16,600 people serve large and small customers in 60 countries across the world, and operate 38 facilities in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Albéa's global sales totaled $1.5 billion in 2013.