16 theSun | TUESDAY NOVEMBER 11 2008

business news

Nestle launches RM75mil Sultan

Sharafuddin
being briefed
on a Nestle

non-dairy creamer plant

by Maria J. Dass The non-dairy
KAMARIDUAN MOHD NOR/THESUN
product by
Rashid after
launching
the creamer
plant.

newsdesk@thesundaily.com
SHAH ALAM: A creamy cup of
coffee is a must for many Malay-
sians for a good part of their day
and at least 16% of these cups
are creamed with Coffee-Mate,
a specially formulated creamer
for coffee with no sugar and no
cholesterol.
Speaking at the launch of the
RM75 million non-dairy creamer
plant at the Shah Alam Nestle fac-
tory complex by Selangor Sultan
Sharafuddin Idris Shah, Nestle (M)
Bhd executive director of Produc-
tion, Dr Magdi Batato, said:
“The Shah Alam complex now
produces Nestle’s range of liquid
drinks, soluble coffees, infant nutri-
tion and adult cereals, other bever-
ages and non-dairy creamers.”
He said the non-dairy creamers
will be used to mix with Nestle’s
other coffee products or be sold to
other coffee makers, in addition to
being sold as plain creamer.
“The plant, which employs al-
most 700 workers, will be Nestle’s
regional manufacturing facility and
will export its products to Indone-
sia, the Philippines, Turkey and
Russia,” he said.
This plant is also expected to
boost Nestle Malaysia’s role in
Malaysia with 88% market share.
creamer is
made from fully
hydrogenated
palm kernel oil
and contains
a negligible
amount of trans-
fatty acids.
Non-dairy
creamer was
first developed
in 1960 at the
Carnation re-
search Centre in
USA and in 1985
Nestle acquired
Carnation with the
objective of devel-
oping this creamer
into one that would in 1939 and its
deliver better cof- s a i d headquarters is now located in
fee creaming as while the effects of the Nestle House Petaling Jaya.
compared to milk. global economic slowdown have The company employs 4,000
Batato also said that another been minimal there are signs of Malaysians and has six sales
RM100 million will be spent to softening in demand. branches, seven factories and
upgrade the existing coffee plant “What we have done is to one national distribution centre in
located within the same complex. launch products which are more Malaysia.
This is expected to be ready affordable to consumers, in ad- Malaysia is currently the big-
by the third quarter of next year, dition to re-examining our cost gest halal producer in the Nestle
he said. structure and value chain which group and is the halal centre of
About 70% of the production in hopefully will help us managed the excellence for Nestle worldwide.
Nestle’s plants in Selangor are for challenges in 2009,” he said. Nestle Malaysia exports its
export and the rest are for local Nestle Malaysia started as the products to more than 50 coun-
consumption. Anglo Swiss Condensed Milk Com- tries, with export contributing
Meanwhile, Milks Business Unit pany located on Bishop Street in 22.5% of total turnover in the first
executive manager Rashid Qureshi Penang. It moved to Kuala Lumpur nine months of this year.

China joins global rescue with US$586b stimulus plan

SINGAPORE: China pitched in
nearly US$600 billion (RM2.1
trillion) to the global effort to avoid
the worst economic downturn in
decades, while grim Japanese data
yesterday offered more proof of
the damage caused by the global
financial crisis.
With mounting evidence that the
US, Japan, the euro area, Britain
and other developed nations are
in recession, investors and leaders
have looked to China to do its bit
in propping up a faltering global
economy.
The world’s fourth-largest
economy is still expanding at a
healthy rate and is one of few nations
still can afford fiscal pump-priming,
although growth has slowed
markedly from heady double-digit
rates seen in the last six years.
Beijing announced on Sunday
plans to re-engineer growth shifting
the economy’s focus away from
struggling export markets to the
domestic economy, promising to
spend four trillion yuan (US$586
billion) on infrastructure and social
services.
It also flagged a shift to a
“moderately easy” monetary
policy, possibly heralding further
reductions in borrowing costs after
three cuts since mid-September.
“This is clearly another
significant step towards combating
global economic risks,” Goldman
Sachs economist Yu Sing said.
The news buoyed Asian stock
markets and drove commodity
prices higher, with Tokyo shares
gaining more than 5% and markets
elsewhere in Asia up more than 2%.
China’s move coincided with a
meeting of officials from the world’s
20 major economies, who pledged
to act to contain the fallout from
the credit crisis triggered by the
downturn in the US housing market
15 months ago.
The G20 meeting in Sao Paolo
produced assurances there would be
no let-up in efforts to pull the world
economy out from the doldrums, but
specific action would more likely
come from a crisis summit of world
leaders on Nov 15 in Washington.
China’s stimulus plan comes
on top of more than US$4 trillion
in bank bailouts, credit guarantees
and fiscal spending pledged by
governments around the world to
contain the damage from the worst
financial turmoil since the 1930s
Great Depression.
In a reminder of how quickly the
disease caused by toxic debt linked
to US mortgages spread beyond
the financial industry to other
businesses and consumers, Japanese
manufacturers suffered their biggest
quarterly slump in machinery
orders in a decade.
Washington was hard at work,
revamping a government bailout
of AIG that would bring the insurer
under the umbrella of the US$700
billion financial rescue package.
- Reuters