BANJA LUKA (Bosnia and Herzegovina), January 4 (SeeNews) – Bosnia's Alumina will invest 12 to 15 million marka ($7.4-9.2 million/6.1-7.7 million euro) in 2018 towards expanding its production capacities, as it branches out from its metallurgical production programme, the company CEO said.
The company is due to tackle the construction of a new production facility as soon as this month, after in 2017 it invested 25 million marka in the construction of two facilities in its bid to switch to a non-metallurgical production programme, CEO Milorad Motika said in an interview posted on the website of the company.
Last year, Alumina built a plant for production of finely precipitated hydrates, and a plant for production of silica gel and special zeolites.
"With these new production facilities we have opened up the company's perspective for the coming years, with a tendency to completely switch to a non-metallurgical production programme, which will bring us more profit, higher employment and increased security in the coming period," Motika explained.
He said that Alumina's future would be questionable had the company stuck to a strictly metallurgical programme, given the fluctuations in metal prices on international markets.
Alumina, based in Zvornik, has been producing zeolite for the detergent industry for over three decades. It currently exports products to 44 countries around the world.
(1 euro=1.95583 marka)