Supermax plans contact lens plants in Singapore, US and UK

PETALING JAYA: Rubber glove producer Supermax Corp Bhd, which aims to increase its contact lens capacity to two billion pieces annually in the next 10 years from 40 million currently plans to set up contact lens plants in Singapore, the US and the UK.
"My dream is to produce two billion (contact) lenses per year. But then, (by) expanding in Malaysia alone is not good enough. So I need to have multiple manufacturing sites," its managing director Datuk Seri Stanley Thai Kim Sim told reporters after its EGM here last Friday.
"However, Malaysia will still remain as our main manufacturing hub. The challenge here is because we are not able to get enough talent in Malaysia (alone)," Thai added, noting that 95%-98% of its workforce are engineers with minimum qualification of a university degree.
He said the group is in the midst of obtaining approval from the Singapore government to set up its contact lens plant there. It expects to get approval by next year.
Supermax, which is one of the world's top four latex glove manufacturers, ventured into contact lens manufacturing last year, with its Sungai Buloh plant starting production of dry-lens (feedstock or semi-finished product for the production of prescriptive end-user contact lens).
However, Thai said the group is still waiting to get its International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) certifications to allow registration of its products, which is expected to be secured by the fourth quarter of 2016. "Once we get it, then only we can start selling."
Thai said the group already has ISO certificates from Brazil, and plans to launch its products in the country by first quarter of calendar year 2017.
"We have filed our registration in China as well," he said, adding that the group is also eyeing the contact lens market in Korea.
Thai said the group has spent RM65 million on its new business, with RM30 million more planned by the end of this year in order to increase its contact lens capacity to 70 million pieces annually by the first quarter of 2017.
He reiterated that the group is not expecting immediate returns from its contact lens business, but rather it is for the long-term benefit of the group.

"(With the new business), it doesn't mean we are sidelining the glove business. The glove business will continue to expand based on demand growth," he added.
Currently, the group’s core revenue comes from rubber gloves. At present, its glove-producing capacity is 24 billion pieces a year.
At the EGM earlier, 99.98% of its shareholders approved the group's proposal to appoint Messrs Afrizan Tarmili Khairul Azhar as its new auditors, to replace its resigning auditors, Messrs Crowe Horwath, Thai said.