DIT support helps green company expand UK operations

1 Nov 2018 02:21 PM

Manufacturer of carbon-neutral paper, Paper Plus, set for global growth after the Department for International Trade helped secure a £5.5 million investment.

The company’s product saves three times more trees than normal recycled paper, making it more affordable for British companies to go carbon neutral.

The investment will help Paper Plus Europe expand their London office and presence in the UK market, creating seven new jobs, as they aim to add to the more than half a million trees they have saved in last two years.

Part of the funding will be used for the company’s product development, which will tackle plastic waste caused by single-use plastic food packaging. The company’s R&D operation will also benefit, helping to further develop their envoPAP food grade packaging that will be biodegradable and compostable.

Minister for Investment, Graham Stuart yesterday said:

I am delighted that the Department for International Trade, through its international network, has been able to assist Paper Plus in landing this considerable new investment from India, which will have huge long-term environmental benefits both in the UK and abroad.

As an international economic department, we are committed to helping UK companies with trailblazing green ideas to locate the investment they need to reach the next level, creating jobs and prosperity across the country, and helping to ensure we leave our environment in a better state than we inherited it.

Director, Paper Plus, Kaushal Shah yesterday said:

We at Paper Plus believe in making sustainability the new normal for consumers in the UK and over the world.

The expertise and advice of DIT have been a significant accelerator for our business.

The professional knowledge of our DIT advisors is phenomenal and it enhances the credibility of the UK as an excellent place to do business.

The news comes as the Minister met companies and industry experts at the Advanced Engineering 2018 trade show in Birmingham.

Advanced Engineering is one of the biggest trade shows of its kind in Europe, and more than 600 suppliers and thousands of visitors were in attendance.

The Department for International Trade’s UK Pavilion - which housed more than 18 companies - demonstrated expertise across the advanced engineering technical spectrum.

The announcement is one of £10 million of investment deals with global partners that have created more than 50 highly specialised jobs in the UK’s advanced engineering sector in recent weeks with assistance from the Department for International Trade.

• In late September, Belgian company Solvay invested in a new specialist centre for aircraft materials in Wrexham, creating 50 jobs.
• Another Belgian company - Sioen Industries - continued their investment in Lancashire-based technical textile manufacturer James Dewhurst in 2017 with a £1.7 million investment in state-of-the-art machinery. Alongside its sister company Veranneman Technical Textiles, the company has also committed itself to creating further jobs at the site in the future.
• Gloucestershire-based engineering company Renishaw have invested £2.7 million in new premises in Mexico, enabling the company to further establish its global footprint.

Further information

• Paper Plus specialise in producing carbon neutral, sustainable, sugarcane-based paper products, and estimates that it has saved a million trees in the last two years. One pallet of its envoPAP paper saves 24 trees compared to only seven with normal recycled paper.
• There are over 100,000 advanced manufacturing companies in the UK, employing 2.7 million people, while manufacturing productivity is growing three times faster than the rest of the UK’s economy as a whole. Research and development in the sector totals £13.5 billion every year.
• DIT’s Export Strategy – launched in August – sets out the ambitious target of increasing exports as a measure of GDP from 30% to 35%, transforming the UK into one of the G7’s most prolific exports.

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