07 September 2022
18:15
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Balta Rugs closes its yarn and carpet manufacturing unit in Avelgem, West Flanders. 250 to 260 of the 486 workers, generally blue-collar personnel, get rid of their work opportunities. Manufacturing will go to other Balta web pages in Belgium and Turkey. “The large strength prices have been the very last straw.”
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The carpet manufacturer Balta Rugs, whose factories have been just lately sold by the Flemish carpet corporation Balta Team to British rival Victoria, needs to shut its department in Avelgem. The enterprise introduced this on Wednesday in a particular works council. The factory employs 401 personnel and 85 clerks.
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In Avelgem, the thread is manufactured, spun and refined from the grain and the carpets are woven and finished in weaving. About half of the staff members – and virtually all staff members – on the web site can work at the Balta Rugs plants in Sint-Baafs-Vijve and Sint-Eloois-Vijve.
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The rationale for the closure is that the corporation refers to the tough financial context, with structurally escalating expenses that predominantly have an effect on the yarn sector.
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We now pay out ten instances additional for our energy costs than two a long time in the past. It was no longer practical.
Marco Style
Topman white carpet
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“The Avelgem plant is thoroughly built-in – from yarn manufacturing to carpet creation – and yarn generation has been stopped for 7 months,” says Marc Dessein, CEO of Balta Rugs, who, in addition to Avelgem, also manages the sites of Sint-Baafs, Vijve, Sint-Eloois-Vijve and two Turkish factories.
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“Until eventually the close of August, we had government help to produce yarn as an offshoot of the crown steps, but that is it. The production of the yarn and the ending of that yarn – an operation where by the yarn is twisted and then set with warmth – it is quite high-priced in conditions of energy and labor and has been structurally unprofitable for many yrs. It was no for a longer time economically feasible to continue to keep our huge yarn manufacturing unit open. High strength prices ended up the previous straw to shut the firm. overall manufacturing unit, such as weaving, “states Dessein.
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In accordance to Dessein, Balta Rugs is now shelling out ten situations additional for its electrical power expenses than two decades back. “It was no for a longer time feasible. When compared to Turkey, exactly where electric power and fuel price ranges have also risen, power expenditures are nonetheless 2 to 2.5 occasions better listed here. ‘
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Turkey
Avelgem yarn generation is relocated to Turkey. Element of the weaving things to do will transfer to Sint-Baafs-Vijve – wherever the finishing and labeling of the carpets can take position – a further section to Sint-Eloois-Vijve, exactly where the group owns a big weaving mill. The team is investing 14 million euros in a division retail store in Sint-Baafs-Vijve. That must come to be the group’s European distribution center. Further more investments are also planned in Turkey.
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Also in the two remaining Belgian crops of Balta Rugs, the functions are presently slowed down due to superior vitality rates: in Sint-Eloois-Vijve with 75 for each cent of the ability, in Sint Baafs-Vijve at less than 50 per cent.
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Dessein emphasizes that he carries on to believe in the creation of yarns and carpets in Belgium, concentrated in two areas as a substitute of a few. ‘In Sint-Baafs-Vijve we carry on to extrude the yarn with no ending, where the yarn is all set in a person step. In Belgium we can even now be aggressive in basic yarn mainly because, contrary to livestock, a lot considerably less manual labor is required. ‘
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The unions are shocked. “The final decision hit like a bomb,” suggests Steven Landries of ACV Metea. ‘The persons at the yarn manufacturing facility observed the storm coming, as extrusion and thermal hardening had been inactive for seven months. But the reality that the complete manufacturing facility would be shut, which include the weaving, was a full shock. ‘
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The unions and administration will meet up with upcoming 7 days to go over the restructuring strategy.
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Modify of name
Victoria’s subsidiary Balta Rugs makes cloth ground coverings – carpet and loose carpet – and sells them in much more than 130 nations around the world. The group has more than 2,500 employees in eight generation web-sites and distribution facilities in Belgium, Turkey and the United States, for a turnover of around 250 million euros.
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In April, Victoria obtained 4 factories – Avelgem, Sint-Baafs-Vijve, Sint-Eloois-Vijve and Oudenaarde – from the Brussels-listed Balta team, together with the Balta model. The original Balta Team has factories only in Tielt, Zele and the United States and focuses on residential and business wall-to-wall carpet tiles and wall-to-wall carpeting for, among some others, resort chains. The Balta Group will soon adjust its title to stay clear of confusion.
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Beaulieu
Balta Rugs is not the only group to sublimate its yarn output in Belgium. At the finish of August, the Belgian group of floor and floor chemicals Beaulieu announced it will shut the heatset division of its Significant Yarns yarn division in Komen, Hainaut, and transfer it to a facility in Comines, France, 4 kilometers absent. Beaulieu cited significant raw product charges, climbing energy selling prices and small-charge and growing imports by Asian operators as the major rationale for this “bundling”.
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