Premium Beauty News - Could you please reposition Samhwa Plastic today... In terms of staff and industrial strike force?
Thomas Hwang - The Company employs some 750 people and our turnover in 2015 amounted to US$ 78 million. We have a total of 90 injection machines including six bi-injection machines (with two more planned).
Premium Beauty News - The buildings housing the new plant are located just next to the first ones?
Thomas Hwang - Absolutely! The first, on a new ground area covers an area of 2422 sqm out of a total building area of 5278 sqm and it will be dedicated to production/operation activities and the second new building with an area of 1776 sqm on a total building area of 2,868 sqm will be dedicated to production and logistics. The total investment amounts to US$ 10 million. The new building will house 16 additional injection machines, 10 additional assembly lines including 3 sets of automatic compact assembly machines representing a total amount of $ 4 million. And we also have a new decoration machine, a machine for laser engraving. I must say that we have many requests for "Cushion Compacts" so we are investing in fully automatic assembly machines that will improve productivity for compacts.
Premium Beauty News - what is today your strategy in terms of packaging development? What innovations will you introduce at MakeUp in New York? And finally what are the next steps in your development?
Thomas Hwang - Our R&D strategy is a combination of our other activities. We believe that the trend of the other leading businesses can be the model for cosmetic packaging. We would like to benchmark leading business models in cosmetics. This year at the MakeUp in New York trade show, we will present a new series of slim "Cushion Compacts". And in the field of "Cushion Compacts", our new model is the thinnest in the world.
On a global scale, Samhwa wants to extend its foothold on the market very aggressively. Our first Shanghai branch opened and generated a turnover of more than $ 10 million last year. We will also open a French office in a month. The office and staff are already in place. We are also looking at the US market where we plan to open an office next year.
Premium Beauty News - Can you give us some details about your partnership with Pochet with whom you have joined forces, to offer a new generation of airless systems?
Thomas Hwang - The joint-venture company SPPS was launched last year, and the product "Pure Drop" was successfully launched on the EU market. In addition to the joint venture, we have many other projects for which we will intend to use the different offices and factories of the Pochet Group around the world. This is under negotiation and we will have visible results in the course of this year.
