The €90m investment has been made into building a new state-of-the-art personal care factory in the region, as well as expanding existing personal care factories to increase the company’s capacity for growth and to meet the increasing demand for beauty products in Indonesia and in other parts of Asia and Africa.
The company says these developments will better enable it to deliver bigger and better innovation more quickly to consumers.
Goal setting
"Unilever, as the emerging markets consumer goods company, has set itself an ambitious goal - to double the size of our business whilst reducing our environmental impact,” said Pier Luigi Sigismondi, Unilever's Chief Supply Chain Officer.
According to Sigismondi, the new facilities will help Unilever to continue to grow in Indonesia as it sees it as an important market in which it has strong category positions much like in South East Asia.
“These markets contribute significantly to the 54% that Unilever currently generates from emerging markets, a figure we expect to rise substantially over the next ten years. We are excited by the enormous possibilities these markets offer and more investments will undoubtedly follow," he added.
All part of the broader picture
The newly-built facility was officially unveiled at an opening ceremony in Indonesia by Bapak Hatta Rajasa, Co-ordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, with the Unilever Board also in attendance.
This investment is part of a €550m three-year investment program in Indonesia to enable Unilever to leverage its position in developing and emerging markets by enabling sustainable and profitable growth.
"With almost 80 years of Unilever history in Indonesia, we have demonstrated long-term commitment to its growth and prosperity so far. Our continuing and significant investment in Indonesia shows that we are equally committed to Indonesia's future growth, economic and environmental development," Maurits Lalisang, chairman of Unilever Indonesia added.