Smurfit Kappa inaugurated its third plant in Tijuana, Mexico, after an investment of US$14.5 million, creating 250 jobs. The folding cardboard plant has a capacity of 10 million square meters and began operations at the end of 2018.

Forstor plans to build a new plant in Dnipro with an annual production capacity of 500 units of lifting equipment.

STMicroelectronics is building a new 300mm wafer fab in Agrate, near Milan, Italy, with construction already started. The first stage will support R&D and initial industrial deployment, with equipment installation for R&D in 2020 and volume production starting in 2021.

Saint-Gobain inaugurated its third glass plant at Sriperumbudur near Chennai, built at a cost of Rs 1,200 crore. The facility is part of the World Glass Complex and will serve domestic and international customers.

Siemens opened an advanced robotized and digitized battery module factory in Trondheim, Norway. The factory will assemble 55 battery modules per shift for the marine and offshore market, with a capacity of up to 300 MWh per year and eight robotic stations.

BOCAR Group, a German automotive supplier, began construction on a new 350,000-square-foot facility in Huntsville, Alabama, its first U.S. manufacturing site. The $115 million project will produce high-end structural aluminum parts and create over 300 jobs.

Toyo Tire North America Manufacturing announced plans for a new $138 million manufacturing facility in Cartersville, Georgia, to produce 2.4 million passenger vehicle tires annually. The project will create over 150 jobs and be built in two phases, totaling 254,000 square feet.

Jiayi Power Technology Co., Ltd. has started construction of a new plant in Jiashan, Zhejiang, to produce 50,000 smart wind power converters annually.

Nidec-Shimpo Corporation formally launched its manufacturing plant in Subic Bay Freeport, Philippines, to produce high-precision speed reducers for robotics. Initial production is 10,000-25,000 units per month, targeting 100,000 units per month by end of 2019 and 120,000 by March 2020.

NPK Slavros plans to build a nonwoven materials production facility in the single-industry town of Blagoveshchensk, Bashkortostan. The investment is about 750 million rubles, and over 100 jobs will be created.

BMP Medical, a division of Biomedical Polymers, has opened a new 80,000 sq. ft. medical plastics manufacturing facility in Sterling, Massachusetts. The facility offers injection molding, blow molding, two-shot and insert molding services for medical device and diagnostic OEMs.

Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech, with local distributors Ray EZM Import Export and Delta Instrument Technology, plans to establish a $10 million medical equipment assembly plant in the Qilinto Pharmaceutical Industrial Park in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN) has received over $220,000 in seed funding to develop a strategic business plan for a sheet metal manufacturing plant near The Pas, Manitoba. The facility, costing at least $22 million, could employ up to 200 people and would supply parts to aerospace companies in Winnipeg.

Yaskawa Europe Robotics started trial production at its new robot factory in Kočevje, Slovenia. The €24.6 million plant will manufacture seven types of robots, with production expected to reach 6,000 robots per year by March 2020 and employment up to 200 by 2023.

Company Borsa plans to create a production facility for industrial polypropylene woven packaging (big bags) in Kotovsk, Tambov Oblast, with an investment of 678.4 million rubles. The facility is expected to employ 238 people.

Yanmar announced a plant in the ORIGINS industrial park in north Chennai to make industrial diesel engines with 80,000 units annual capacity. Production is expected to start in 2020 and create up to 400 jobs.

Total's Egina offshore field, about 150 km off Port Harcourt in Nigeria, started production at the end of 2018. TechnipFMC supplied the field's full subsea production system and flexible piping.

Yadelin Science and Technology plans to spend 500 million yuan to build facilities producing 100,000 mt of aluminium alloy ingot and auto parts per year in Shangrao Renewable Resources Recycling Economic Industrial Park.

Spinner Bulgaria, a joint venture between German Spinner Werkzeugmaschinenfabrik and Turkish Avcı CNC Makine, will invest 10 million leva in a new plant for CNC machine tools in Plovdiv's Kuklen industrial zone. Construction is to be completed by March 2019, with production starting in April 2019.

Gree Electric Appliances started construction on a 5-billion-yuan ($736 million) industrial park in Xinjin County, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, with a first phase producing 3 million washing machines annually.

The HARTING Technology Group has opened a production facility near the Polish city of Bydgoszcz, where subsidiary HARTING Customised Solutions is manufacturing tailor-made solutions.

EKKI group and German pump company Homa group signed an MoU for a joint venture to set up a pump manufacturing facility in Coimbatore, with Homa holding 50 percent. Homa plans to invest nearly Rs 150 crore, and the factory would create about 100 jobs.

Dong Nam Textile JSC, a subsidiary of Vinatex, began construction of a yarn factory in Tra Kha Industrial Park, Bac Lieu City, with total investment of over VND500 billion ($21.56 million). The first phase will produce 3,500 tonnes of yarn annually starting late 2019.

Schwing Stetter India signed an MoU with the Tamil Nadu Government to invest Rs 2.37 billion initially (scaling to Rs 3.50 billion over four years) in a new 53-acre plant in Cheyyar for producing concrete boom pumps, self-loading mixers, and XCMG road machinery, creating 200 jobs.

Tecnoglass, through a joint venture with Vidrio Andino (a Saint-Gobain subsidiary), will build a $160 million float glass plant in Galapa, Colombia. The plant will have a capacity of 750 metric tons per day and is expected to be completed in 2021.

BASF inaugurated a new world-scale antioxidants manufacturing plant at its Caojing site in Shanghai, China, with an annual capacity of 42,000 tons. The first phase, including units for powder blending, liquid antioxidants and formgiving, is now operational.

Eclipse Automation will invest $4.6 million in new operations in Rock Hill, South Carolina, creating 90 jobs over five years. The 57,000-square-foot facility is projected to be operational in March 2019.

Seibu Giken announced it will build a new factory in Munakata, Fukuoka Prefecture, to produce exhaust gas removal equipment and desiccant dehumidifiers, with an investment of about 3.5 billion yen. Production capacity for exhaust gas removal equipment will increase from 30 to 50 units per month, and for desiccant dehumidifiers from over 10 to nearly 30 units per month.

Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology Co., Ltd. opened the world's largest intelligent factory for tower cranes in Changde, China, after three years of construction and an investment of 780 million yuan (US$115.4 million).

Festo held the inauguration ceremony for Phase 1 of its new global production center in Jinan Sun Village, China, on January 23, 2019. The phase covers 100,000 square meters with an investment of about 560 million yuan (approx. $83 million). Production is scheduled to start in February 2019. The overall project will create about 3,500 jobs.

Schwing Stetter India signed an MoU with the Tamil Nadu Government at the Global Investors Meet 2019 to invest INR 237 crore immediately in a new plant in Cheyyar, scaling to INR 350 crore over four years, with 200 jobs planned.

Japanese pump maker Torishima Pump moved into a former ClydeUnion Pumps facility in Fort Custer Industrial Park, Battle Creek, Michigan, investing $1.5 million and creating 11 jobs.

SCREEN Holdings completed a new semiconductor manufacturing equipment production base, 'S3 (S-Cube),' on the premises of its Hikone Plant in Shiga Prefecture. The facility cost approximately 90 billion yen and will start operations in October 2019, producing single-wafer washing machines.

Invenergy's 1,480MW natural gas-fired combined-cycle power plant in Jessup, Pennsylvania, started commercial operations in January 2019. The $1 billion project created 1,198 construction jobs and uses GE 7HA.02 gas turbines.

Glanbia Ireland and Royal A-ware announced a €140 million investment to build a new continental cheese manufacturing facility in Belview, South Kilkenny. The plant will have a production capacity of 450 million litres of milk per year, create 80 full-time jobs and 100 temporary construction jobs, and is scheduled for commissioning in 2022.

Chinese tyre manufacturer Roadbot started construction of a tyre-manufacturing plant in Kizad, Abu Dhabi, with a total investment of Dh2.2 billion ($614.37 million). The factory will have an initial annual capacity of 3 million PCR tyres and 1 million TBR tyres, increasing to 10 million PCR tyres by 2022, and is expected to be fully operational by October 2020, creating 1,200 jobs.

Soceram is investing EUR 20 million in a new BCA (autoclaved aerated concrete) factory in Cordun, Neamt County, Romania, with a capacity of 750 m3/day, expandable to 1250 m3/day, creating 150 jobs.

Haitian Metal's new die-casting machine production base in Ningbo Beilun, China, was completed and put into use in June 2021. The project invested $160 million, covers 139 mu, and can produce full-series cold-chamber die-casting machines with clamping force from 180T to 8800T, with an annual capacity of about 4000 machines.

Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) established a Remote Monitoring Center (RMC) in its Nagasaki Works to support operations and maintenance for various power generating equipment. It is the company's fourth such facility.

Wellmei US Inc. is investing $1.9 million to establish its first North American manufacturing plant in Troy, Michigan, creating 71 jobs over five years for mold production serving automotive and medical industries.

A joint project between Lindeforklift (China) and Fujian Haishan Heavy Industry broke ground in Haicheng Town, Longhai, Fujian. The facility will produce 45,000 eco-friendly electric warehouse trucks annually with a total investment of 350 million yuan.

Shenzhen Hongtao Electronic Technology Co Ltd (SHETCL) will invest 1 billion yuan to build a manufacturing base of display screens in Nantong High-tech Zone, Tongzhou district, producing small-and-medium-sized screen modules.

Westfalia Fruit Colombia inaugurated a new Hass avocado processing plant in Sonsón, Antioquia, Colombia. The facility is the largest and most advanced in the country, featuring Compac grading and sorting technology.

TI Automotive will build an 8,700 m² production facility in CTPark Krásno nad Kysucou, with construction starting in Q1 2019 and a potential further 2,300 m² extension.

Lasselsberger is constructing a plant for dry building mixes in Abzelilovo district, Bashkortostan, including white cement and micro-calcite production. First products are scheduled for mid-2020.

Charah Solutions opened its first facility using patented technologies for grinding granulated blastfurnace slag to create supplementary cementitious materials. The plant is located at the Port of Coeymans, New York, and will serve concrete product manufacturers in the Northeast.

Bosch is investing $1.1 billion to construct a second wafer fabricating plant in Dresden, Germany, which will double its chip output starting in 2021.

Miwon Specialty Chemical Co. USA will locate new production operations in Richland County, South Carolina, investing $19.5 million and creating 25 jobs. The 65,000-square-foot facility is expected to come online in Q3 2020.

Chinese company CPMC plans to invest €60 million in a new beverage can factory in Genk, Limburg, on the site of Illochroma Haoneng, with production targeted to start by January 1, 2020; the agreement is not yet fully finalised.

Continental performed the groundbreaking of a greenfield plant in Talegaon, Pune, India, with an investment of around Rs 240 crore (€30 million). Production of drivetrain products is slated to start from early 2020.