Bangkok--13 Nov--Aziam Burson-Marteller Kimberly-Clark Thailand, the leading tissue products company announced the completion of the Samut Prakarn Mill expansion enhancing the company’s tissue converting capacity for export to institutional customers across the Asia Pacific region by 8,500 tons or 1.6 million cases, valued at 1.36 billion baht (US$ 40 million) per year. The Samut Prakarn Mill expansion has increased the proportion of the company’s revenue generated from exports to over 30% this year. Mr. David Osborn, Managing Director of Kimberly-Clark Thailand said, “Thailand was seen as a best practice, high quality manufacturing operation in the South Asia Developing and Emerging Countries — SADEC region while the South Mill represented an ideal site for these assets and the expansion promotes the Thailand-Australia Free Trade Agreement — TAFTA. These factors are why we expanded the Samut Prakarn plant, and this was completed in October 2007 with an investment of 200 million baht. This yields an immediate growth in trade between Australia and Thailand of 1.4 billion baht (US$ 41 million) per annum and potentially 3.4 billion baht (US$100 million) in additional export value for Thailand. Additionally, the company has created over 100 new jobs. “This new capacity will be used to produce tissue products and wipers for institutional customers across the Asia Pacific region. They are currently being exported to 4 Australian cities including Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane as well as to Auckland, New Zealand. This mill expansion boosts export’s share of Kimberly-Clark Thailand’s current annual turnover of 3.5 billion baht from 5% to 35%,” added Osborn. Kimberly-Clark Thailand has been recognized as a gold card importer and exporter by The Thai Customs Department. The company currently imports raw materials for tissue manufacturing and finished products such as diapers, wipers, professional gloves, etc. At the same time Kimberly-Clark exports tissue hard rolls and finished products such as facial tissue, bath tissue, wipers, etc., to 20 countries including Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Nepal, Oman, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam. According to Mr. Ukrish Kanchanaketu, Director-Corporate Affairs of Kimberly-Clark Thailand Ltd., “Kimberly-Clark has a mission to promote sustainability and good corporate citizenship.Our sustainability policy focuses on products, safety, environment and people development.” “The Samut Prakarn Mill is a good example of our sustainability policy in action as it has received both the Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (GMP and HACCP) certificates in 2006. This reflects that the plant’s operations have high standards of hygiene, product quality and safety control systems. This reassures consumers that they will always experience world-class quality and safety in every Kimberly-Clark product,” added Ukrish. Kimberly-Clark’s vision for 2010 regarding environmental sustainability in the production process is to reduce water consumption by 50%, to reduce waste release to 0%, and to reduce energy consumption by 15%. The company has been recognized for its commitment to sustainability and good governance by being named as the Personal Products Industry Sustainability Leader for the 2007/2008 Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI).