Volkswagen (VW) has opened its first car factory in Russia, just the latest carmaker to invest in the country. The plant near the city of Kaluga, 200km (125 miles) south west of Moscow, will assemble 66,000 VW Passat and Skoda Octavia models next year. Built for 1bn euros ($1.5bn; £713m), VW aims to raise production to 150,000 cars by 2009, and employ...

Nestlé Rossiya, the leading food and beverage company in Russia, today announced the acquisition of Ruzskaya Confectionery Factory (RKF). This company offers consumers a wide range of chocolate products under the ĐĄomilfo and Ruzanna brands. The acquisition price was not disclosed. Completion of the transaction is subject to the usual regulatory approvals...

Mondi Group ('Mondi') is pleased to announce that it has signed the delivery contract with Metso for a new lightweight recycled containerboard machine with a production capacity of up to 470,000 tonnes a year. The signing of the contract is the latest stage in the project announced earlier in 2007 to invest in a new lightweight recycled containerboard machine...

In collaboration with a Russian partner, Germany's leading manufacturer of tin-plate packaging is building a facility in the greater Moscow region to produce tin-plate packaging for the industrial chemicals sector. Following extensive market research, the management and supervisory board of the family-owned company, based in Öhringen in Germany’s...

Over 2.3 million tonnes of steel packaging were recycled in Europe last year. This represents an average recycling rate of 63% in the EU-25, an increase of 6% in recycled tonnage compared to 2004. For the first time, recycling data gathered by APEAL covers 30 countries, namely the EU-25 as well as Romania, Bulgaria, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey and provides...