Latvian plywood producer A/S Latvijas Finieris is to invest £48m over the next three years in new equipment and facilities.

The investment is in response to strong figures – over the past three years the company has seen its sales expand by 40%, mainly in the area of added value products which meet the specific needs of industrial end users.

This growth has utilised most of the current manufacturing capacity and Latvijas Finieris decided that, with future opportunities in mind and to maintain its competitive position, it needed to make a substantial investment.

A new birch plywood factory is to be built in eastern Latvia, and money will be spent generally improving all areas of production and competitiveness within the group.

A spokesperson for the company said: “Even higher performance plywood product to customers’ specific technical requirements will be available from this substantial programme, which is scheduled to be operational by the middle or end of 2006.”