Beaudesert manufacturer GELITA Australia Pty Ltd will be embarking on an ambitious expansion of their local operations estimated to cost $6.5 million.
GELITA will be making this advancement with the support of a $1.25 million grant from the Australian Government’s Manufacturing Transition Programme.
Announcing the investment Scott Buchholz, Federal Member for Wright said that the programme was part of the Government’s commitment to ensuring a secure future for manufacturing in Australia and growing the local economy through increased manufacturing.
“This investment will enable successful local manufacturers like GELITA to transition and expand. It’s a great way of growing local business and encouraging growth”,
“With the Governments backing and their own investment GELITA will be able to develop more sophisticated manufacturing which will in turn create high value jobs in the area as well as the 79 existing jobs GELITA already bring to the area” said Mr Buchholz.
The expansion project will involve the purchase of additional capital equipment to increase production of gelatine products in order to transaction into a higher value pharmaceutical market.
Nationwide, over a quarter of a billion dollars will be injected into Australia’s advanced manufacturing, with more than $200 million invested by Australian manufacturers and $50 million from the Government.
This highly competitive programme supports transformation to build Australia’s manufacturing capability for the future.
Of the 79 businesses that applied for funding, 19 received between $1 million and $5 million.
Tony Wise, General Manager of GELITA Australia, said that the support of the Australian Government in this project will ensure the long term growth of the business in Beaudesert. “This project will enable the expansion of our Australian operations by approximately 20%, and more importantly improve our quality to higher value pharmaceutical grade gelatine. This will enable us to replace expensive imports with quality local products, increase our local employment in operations and expand our export market in Asia”.
Mr Wise also explained difference that the $1.25M contribution from the Federal Government will make. “The project was previously not considered feasible until this co-investment model was proposed to our management board. GELITA has more than 20 operations worldwide, and we are competing for investment. The management board was impressed with both the support of the Federal Government and our local MP, Scott Buchholz. This was critical in being able to move ahead with the next phase of this operation”.
The GELITA Beaudesert operations will in the future be able to better compete on quality and price with larger operations from lower cost countries. The project will be commissioned in 2017 and will contribute in jobs and revenue through both the construction and operational phase.
