French plaster cardboard manufacturer Saint-Gobain was planning to invest 51 million euro in building a plant in Bulgaria via its local subsidiary Saint-Gobain Construction Products Bulgaria, investor.bg said on October 24.

The InvestBulgaria Agency on October 24 handed a First Class Investor Certificate to Saint-Gobain for the project to build the Plaster Cardboard Maritsa Plant. The certificate entitles the project to infrastructure funding from local and state government.

The company would not borrow any money for the project implementation but would use its own funds for the entire development process. The plant would be built in the area around the Maritsa Iztok thermal power plants. This would place it close to the raw material the company uses, namely the gypsum waste products of the sulphur purifying installations of the coal-based power plants.

The annual production capacity of the plant would be 25 million sq m of plaster cardboard with different thickness and purpose (standard, moisture resistant, fire resistant and reinforced). The new facility would open more than 80 jobs.

Saint-Gobain had been present on the Bulgarian market so far only as seller of its brands Rigips (plaster cardboards), Isover (insulation materials) and Weber (industrial coatings). Saint-Gobain had an annual turnover of more than 4.7 billion euro and was represented in 54 countries worldwide.