RAIS, a leading Bulgarian manufacturer of CNC metal-cutting and metalworking machines, opened a new production base in Pazardzhik. The facility cost BGN 8.6 million and covers 3,800 sq m, creating 40 jobs initially.

Jinfangyuan, a joint venture of Trumpf and Jiangsu Jinfangyuan CNC Machine Tool, opened the first phase of its Nanyuan project in Yangzhou, China. The EUR 100 million facility will produce over 500 laser cutting machines annually.

Stik-Pak Solutions, a contract packaging firm, will invest $14.3 million to relocate and expand its Franklin County operation into a new 100,000 sq ft facility in the Summit View Business Park. The project is expected to create 50-60 new jobs within six years, with phase one completed by late 2019.

India's Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change approved terms of reference for Shree Cement's proposed 3.5 Mt/yr integrated cement plant at Bhuj, Gujarat, including a waste heat recovery unit, captive power plant, synthetic gypsum unit and railway terminal.

WuXi Biologics announced plans to build a biologics development, clinical and commercial manufacturing center in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, with 5,000 L and 48,000 L bioreactor capacity. The initial phase will be operational in 2020.

Makita Romania organized a groundbreaking ceremony on May 16, 2018 for a new production unit (Phase IV) at its factory in Brănești, Ilfov County, Romania. The ceremony was held on May 16, 2018.

Tristone broke ground on its first US plant in Mooresville with an investment of about $23.6 million, which it will lease under a long-term contract. The plant is expected to be finished in November 2018 and start operating in May 2019, and create more than 300 jobs.

Progroup will build a new paper machine (PM 3) in Sandersdorf-Brehna near Bitterfeld, Germany, with an investment of €375 million and 750,000 t annual output. Construction is scheduled to start in Q1 2019, with completion in the second half of 2020.

Moroccan cement group Cimaf announced plans to build a cement plant with a capacity of 300,000 tons per year in Bouaké, Ivory Coast. Land has been acquired and permits are being prepared to start construction.

MMK and Coskunoz have launched a 1-billion ruble MMK-Coskunoz-Alabuga car parts facility in the Alabuga special economic zone in Tatarstan, Russia. The plant will produce steel car parts for Ford Sollers and other domestic car makers, with a projected capacity of 150,000 tons annually.

Microdyn-Nadir, the water treatment business unit of Mann+Hummel Group, opened a new 27,000 sq ft automated manufacturing plant in Austin, Texas, to produce BIO-CEL MBR modules for wastewater treatment.

Garaventa Lift officially opened a new 115,000 sq ft factory and office facility in Surrey, BC, Canada, representing a multi-million-dollar investment. The facility triples capacity and houses over 200 employees.

Trumpf opened a new €12 million production facility for its subsidiary JFY in Yangzhou, China. The facility is the largest production site in the Trumpf Group, covering 19,000 m².

Global Compressor LP has opened a service repair center in Houston, Texas, stocked with more than 28,000 compressor parts and able to refurbish and ship parts the same day.

Medline will invest $118 million to build a 600,000-square-foot production facility in Mexicali, Baja California, expected to generate over 3,000 direct jobs.

Medline opened a 250,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Laredo, Texas, for custom surgical procedure trays, expanding its Texas footprint to over 1.5 million square feet.

UBC Group has completed the first phase of a new refrigeration equipment plant in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, with 20,000 m² of space. The company invested €18 million, and the plant will produce glass-door refrigerators and ice cream freezers with an initial capacity of 60,000 units per year. First production is expected in June 2018.

China Railway Construction Heavy Industry (CRCHI) completed and put into production a high-end underground engineering equipment manufacturing base in Changsha, China, with an investment of 5 billion CNY. The base will create 3,000 jobs and add annual output value of over 5 billion CNY.

Novelis broke ground on a $305 million aluminum processing facility in Guthrie, Kentucky, that will create 125 jobs producing automotive-grade aluminum sheet. The plant is expected to be operational by 2020.

Yaskawa announced it will build a new factory in Kocevje, Slovenia, to produce inverter drives, servo drives and servo motors. The investment is valued at approximately €25 million ($30 million) and is expected to create up to 250 jobs.

Yaskawa announced it will build a new factory in Kocevje, Slovenia, to produce inverter drives, servo drives and servo motors. The investment is worth about €25 million and will create up to 250 jobs, with operations starting within two years.

Hokusho announced it will build a new factory within its production site in Hakusan, Ishikawa Prefecture, with an investment of about ¥3 billion. The factory will increase production of vertical conveyors and is expected to be completed in May 2019.

Shell Polymers is building a massive petrochemical complex in the Pittsburgh area, which will include 3.5 billion pounds of annual polyethylene resin capacity. The project will create 600 full-time jobs and 6,000 construction jobs, with production expected to begin in the early 2020s.

DuPont plans to spend $45 million to build a facility in Newark, Delaware, for its Kalrez-brand perfluoroelastomer. The facility will be twice the size of an existing Kalrez plant in Newark and is expected to be completed in two years, after which the older plant will be closed.

Sipharjoong Burkina S.A. has begun construction of a plant in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, to produce disposable syringes and surgical gloves. The project involves an investment of nearly 10 billion F CFA and is expected to create 200 direct and 500 indirect jobs, with production starting in May 2019.

The 1230 MW Haveli Bahadur Shah gas-fired combined cycle power plant in Pakistan has completed commissioning and started combined cycle commercial operations. GE supplied two 9HA.01 gas turbines and other equipment.

Elbit Systems Cyclone and Georgia's Partnership Fund opened a new factory in Georgia to produce composite structural assembly parts for civil aircraft, with total investment of $93 million, expected to create 300 jobs and generate $60 million in annual exports when fully operative in about seven years.

Powerchip Technology plans to build a new 12-inch wafer plant in the Tongluo campus of Hsinchu Science Park in Miaoli, Taiwan, with total investment estimated at nearly NT$300 billion (US$10.1 billion).

Eclipse Automation has opened a 26,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona, with a capital investment of more than $1 million. The facility will hire over 50 automation engineers and technicians over the next year.

Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics opened a life sciences laboratory on the University of Massachusetts Medical School campus in Worcester, Massachusetts, for application testing of single-use systems for cell and gene therapy.

Dow Chemical announced the official opening of its coating materials plant in Meishan, China, producing acrylic emulsion and additives for architectural and industrial coatings.

German manufacturer Mubea plans to invest US$112 million to build its second plant in Guanajuato, Mexico, creating 559 jobs to produce stabilizer bars, precision steel tubes and chassis components.

A new $93 million aircraft parts factory opened in Tbilisi, Georgia, a joint venture between Georgian and Israeli sides (Aerostructure Technologies Cyclone), producing parts for Boeing, Airbus and Bombardier, with production expected by 2020 and 300 jobs.

ProMach opened a new 157,000-square-foot facility in Statham, Georgia, for multi-brand manufacturing, customer support, aftermarket parts distribution, and Factory Acceptance Testing. The facility houses Zalkin capping systems and Benchmark Automation equipment.

Grimme inaugurated a new production facility in Tianjin, China, with an investment of over €13 million. The plant includes 12,500 sq. m of factory floor and 1,400 sq. m of office space, initially producing potato cultivation equipment for the Chinese market.

Lindal Group held a ribbon-cutting for its new 100,000 square foot facility in Columbus, Indiana, hosting manufacturing, R&D, offices and warehousing for aerosol packaging, part of over $20 million of US investment.

GE Aviation opened a factory complex in Huntsville, Alabama, to mass-produce silicon carbide (SiC) materials for ceramic matrix composites (CMC) used in jet engines. The facility will eventually employ 300 people.

Saab unveiled a 5,000-square-meter facility in São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil, for its Gripen fighter jet aerostructures plant. The plant, operated by Saab Aeronáutica Montagens (SAM), will produce six complex structural parts for the Brazilian Gripen fighter and is expected to start manufacturing in 2020 with 55 employees, increasing to 200 by 2024.

GenBody invested $430,000 to build a two-story diagnostic kit production plant in Bandung, Indonesia, called PT. GenBody Indonesia Sehat. Construction is expected to finish by August 2018. The plant will have capacity to produce up to 6 million rapid diagnostic kits annually.

Furukawa Electric inaugurated a new optical fiber plant in Tangier, Morocco, on May 9, 2018. The plant required an initial investment of 200 million Moroccan dirhams, with an additional 100 million dirhams planned in the medium term, and is expected to create 200 qualified jobs.

Shanghai Jita Semiconductor Co., Ltd. announced a specialty process line construction project in Shanghai's Lingang新城 Equipment Industrial Park, with a total investment of approximately 35.9 billion yuan. The project includes an 8-inch 0.11um 60,000-wafer-per-month line, a 12-inch 65nm 3,000-wafer advanced analog circuit pilot line, and a 6-inch 5,000-wafer SiC/GaN wide-bandgap semiconductor power device pilot line, with further expansion planned.

Air Temp of America, a subsidiary of Mexico's Air Temp de México, will set up its US headquarters and first US manufacturing operation in Panama City, Florida, after buying an existing facility. The company plans about $6 million in capital investment and 50 new jobs.

DowDuPont will invest $45 million over two years to buy and retrofit a new Newark, Delaware plant producing Kalrez high-temperature sealant material. The facility will be twice the size of the current site and will not add permanent jobs.

Angelina Forest Products, LLC announced plans to build a new softwood lumber production plant in Lufkin, Texas. The $100 million sawmill is expected to be operational in Q2 2019 and create over 100 full-time jobs.

Simba Cement will bring its new 3000tpd cement works in Tutir, Tororo district, online in May 2018, creating over 200 direct jobs.

Construction of the Amkodor-Mash plant began in Kolodishchi, Minsk region. The plant will produce front and universal loaders, telescopic loaders, and tractors with articulated frames, with a planned capacity of about 6,000 machines per year and a project cost of approximately $230 million.

Yaskawa Dürr Robot Application Equipment (Beijing) Co., Ltd. held a grand opening ceremony for its new factory in Xianghe Robot Town on May 8, 2018, and began production. The factory includes pre-assembly lines, R&D labs, training facilities and a tech exhibition hall.

thyssenkrupp opened a new escalator production facility in Dilovası, Kocaeli, Turkey, with a €20 million investment. The plant will produce 1,200 escalators annually in the first phase and serve as an export hub.

AMKODOR-Mash will build a new plant in Kolodishchi, Belarus, to produce loaders and tractors, with a capacity of 6,000 machines per year and creating 1,350 jobs.

Amada North America will invest $87 million in a new facility in High Point, North Carolina, to manufacture press brake bending equipment, creating 201 jobs over five years.