The Lithuanian Confederation of industrialists has announced the best project on the 5th of December in the  most important competition in bussines community. „YIT Bustas“ project Ausros namai“ was awarded with the gold medal in estimate of products what our enterprises produce. Painted facade boards „Minerit PK are used in this project. Architects are- Audrys Karalius and Donaldas Trainauskas.

Oy Minerit Ab is bringing its largest investment of the decade into productional use. The opening of the fifth line in succession will be celebrated on the 17th of April, 2007 and the line will be productive immediately. The timing of the investment has been excellent due to the high demand for fibre-cement building boards. The growth of the construction volume both in Minerit’s export market (Northern Europe, the Baltic Countries and Russia) and in Finland has partly contributed to this increase. The export share is big as the domestic sales cover approx. 25% of Oy Minerit Ab’s total volume.

However, more remarkable has been the rapid growth in the usage of fibre-cement boards during the last few years: the growth has been biggest with products for façade applications. Architects and designers have been satisfied to have a building board that enables them to design and compose more versatile surfaces and colours than before. Also Minerit SP board, designed for bathrooms and other damp room wall constructions, has increased its market share steadily. This has required a lot of product development. The grey “eternit board” of the ancient times has become a distinguished material for all kinds of facades. We will introduce some novelties as well in the near future; the new through-colouring method for façade boards is already being applied in the production of interior boards and the manufacturing of the pastel-coloured boards will be launched shortly.

The realized investment of over 5 million Euros will increase the production capacity of Oy Minerit Ab by approx. 50%. The factory can then produce over 6 million sqm of fibre-cement boards annually and the expanded capacity will be put into use almost entirely. We have hired 25 new workers, most of whom are expected to be permanently employed later. The company trusts in the Finnish eagerness to work, in the technical know-how and in the competitiveness of the production processes. At this very moment of opening this new production line, the planning of next investments has already been initiated.