Philippines: Knauf and the German Investment and Development Corporation (DEG) are to build a 16Mm² gypsum wallboard plant in Bataan. The two companies will invest Euro40m in the joint venture project, according to the Philippines News Agency. The agreement was signed at the Philippine embassy in the presence of the Philippine ambassador to Germany Melita Sta. Maria-Thomeczek, Knauf CEO Manfred Grundke and Christian Laibach and Klaus Helsper on behalf of DEG.

The new plant is planned to be completed by early 2018 and is expected to create 100 direct jobs. The proposed investment was granted pioneer status, to provide tax incentives, by the Board of Investments and the Philippine Trade and Investment Centre-Berlin earlier in 2016.

Chile: El Volcan, a company owned by Matte Group and Saint-Gobain, plans to spend up to US$50m on building a new gypsum wallboard plant in Puente Alto. The builder's merchant intends to upgrade an existing production site to produce wallboard and plaster, according to the El Mercurio newspaper. Permits have been secured for the project and the plant is expected to be ready by early 2018. The company also intends to start selling its full range of products in Peru.

Ukraine: Knauf Gips Kyiv, part of Germany's Knauf, has suspended wallboard production because of difficulties with rail traffic, according to Knauf's local marketing and sales director Oleksandr Starchenko. He told Interfax-Ukraine that the Kyiv plant has been forced to suspend operations due to a lack of rolling stock on the railway for the supply of finished products from the Knauf Gips Donbas factory, which is located in Soledar, Donetsk region.

"The situation now is not just bad, it is catastrophically bad," explained Starchenko. "Bad is when at least something works. Catastrophic is when nothing works. This is not only my opinion, this is the view of the market. The result of the situation is the fact that the Kyiv factory halts activities because we cannot bring in materials."

"We have two enterprises here. One of them is in the east, close to the combat zone. However, it works and is one of the largest ones in Europe," he said, noting that the company has limited ability to supply goods produced at Knauf Gips Donbas to customers by rail.

France: Environmental concerns have been raised about Placoplatre's plans to develop a open-cast gypsum quarry at Fort de Vaujours near Paris. The site is believed to contain enough high-end gypsum for the Saint-Gobain subsidiary's nearby wallboard plant and for other plants in the group, according to Deutsche Welle. However, environmentalists have raised the risks of excavating a site near to the capital of France that was used for nuclear testing between the 1950s and 1990s.

"It's important to maintain our plant. We employ 400 people at the factory which generates 3000 indirect jobs and an additional average 1000 workers will be operating at the industrial site," said Gilles Bouchet, Placoplatre's head of mining development. He added that the wallboard producer has conducted impact and radiation studies that have been submitted to the French nuclear safety body ASN.

Christophe Nedelec, president of environmental non-government organisation Gagny-Les Abbesses-Chelles has queried the efficacy of Placoplatre's tests and has called for an independent body to conduct them.