Egger invests €200m in Russian MDF plant

Austrian wood-based material specialist Egger has recently started up a flooring facility in the Russian town of Gagarin as a first step of an extensive investment project. “We see Eastern Europe and Russia in the medium term as strong growth markets for laminate flooring and would like to manufacture these products in the local area. We will be able to do that by means of the new production facility in Gagarin,” says Thomas Leissing, spokesman of the Egger-management, explaining the development investment at the latest plant belonging to the Egger Group.

An ultra-modern MDF production facility will subsequently be installed at the Gagarin site, which is expected to start operations in the second half of 2016. The MDF capacity during the first development stage will be around 350,000 m³ a year and 350 new jobs can be created with the expansion of the plant in the Russian region of Smolensk. The overall planned investment is around 200 million €. Half of this will be spent on construction and infrastructure. A recently installed biomass power station will act as a producer of heat for drying wood fibres once it is completed.