Malaysia's Top Glove will open its first Vietnam factory next year as the world's largest glove maker boosts production to meet a surge in demand for hygienic gloves, Nikkei reported.
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By December next year Top Glove expects to have 872 separate product lines, up from 648 product lines this year, with total production capacity rising to 83.3 billion gloves, compared to 63 billion gloves in 2018, and 49 billion gloves the year before.
Top Glove, which has a market capitalization of just over US$3 billion, reported US$105.7 million profit last year on the back of US$1 billion in revenue. The company operates 40 factories across Asia, including one in China, and currently exports to 195 markets globally.
Lim, 61, who founded Top Glove in 1991 with a single product line, said the decision to open a factory in Vietnam was not an attempt to reduce its reliance on China amid protracted trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.
"China's sales of gloves are expected to be diverted to operations in Malaysia, impacting sales here positively," Lim said. "However, this impact is minimal. War of any kind is never good in the long term and we hope this trade war can be resolved soon."
With Top Glove to invest US$24.5 million to build the new Vietnam factory, Lim said he expects global demand for gloves to continue rising by around 10% a year. The Vietnam plant is expected to commence production of PVC gloves production mid-2020, with an estimated capacity of four billion gloves a year.
