Amcor announces growth strategy at AGM

In addition, he said Amcor's flexible packaging plant in Russia had doubled its capacity after installing a press relocated from the Colodense confectionery packaging plant in Bristol, which was closed last year.

In the UK, Ilkeston-based food-packaging producer Amcor Flexibles Venus will be shut with the loss of up to 140 jobs as part of Amcor's major restructuring of its European Flexibles division.

Amcor wants to cut the division's 7,600-strong workforce by 900 as it moves more production to lower-cost economies in southern and eastern Europe.

MacKenzie said the healthcare and food operations in Amcor's flexibles business had made a "solid" start to the year, although raw material costs had continued to increase since June and were now at "record highs".

These costs are expected to stabilise at current levels provided oil prices do not continue to increase.

Full-year earnings in the flexibles business are also expected to rise.

MacKenzie said Amcor's PET operation would continue to focus on expanding the higher value, more technically demanding hot-fill segment, which is led by Amcor's dedicated PepsiCo plant in Wytheville, Virginia.

Amcor is also building a new tobacco packaging plant in the Ukraine, which is expected to come on line next month.

MacKenzie added that this would ease overcapacity in the group's tobacco packaging operations, which had resulted in higher costs and plant inefficiencies.

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