Page 60 - EASTERN POLYMER GROUP | ANNUAL REPORT 2015
P. 60

subsidiaries may consider passing polymer cost to              In addition to research on new products, EIC works on
customers by increasing price of the products manufactured     improvement of existing products to attain more promient
under their own brands, including switching certain            properties, including improvement of production to
materials to lower the cost of production at the time or       increase its efficiency. As a result, with ongoing research,
selling products made from alternative materials in place      the corporate group’s products with superior features stand
of original materials. For example, the company may            out against the competitors’, all along.
consider selling PET plastic cup instead of PP or PS plastic   Simultaneously, subsidiaries such as AFC has investment
cup under the same qualification required by customers.        in specialized center for the development of () fire-retardant
Risks from changing of technologies                            polymer, and one of the most advanced flammability Test
Since the corporate group manufacture and distribute           Centers in the country while EPP also invests in biological
plastic products and all income are derived from plastic       research and development center for safety of food and
and polymer conversion, which the corporate group              beverage packaging.
implement variety of technologies, for example, Mixing         Risks of possible loss of income or business performance from
and Compounding, Extrusion, Injection, Thermoforming,          the incurrence of unavoidable calamity and natural disaster to
Blow Molding, and Reaction Injection Molding (R.I.M.). If      factories or machines of the company
competitors of the corporate group can invent better and       Main business of the subsidiaries is manufacturing
more advance technology than those of the corporate            products for distribution which is subject to factories and
group and result in lowering the cost of production, they      machines. The incurrence of damage, unavoidable
may affect the competitive advantage of the corporate          calamity, and natural disaster to factories or machines
group. If the corporate group cannot improve its production    cause production under-capacity or the production to stop
technology in time, it may materially affect the result of     and could have a material adverse effect on subsidiaries,
operation.                                                     and result in a loss of major customers because they need
In addition to production technology, unique features of       to find other manufacturers in place of subsidiaries. To win
plastic materials rendering products made by the corporate     back said customers after fixing damaged factories or
group to outperform their competitors. Such are the main       machines could be difficult. Besides aforementioned
factors that customers consider when making decision           subjects, subsidiaries have to bear additional cost of
to buy products. If competitors can invent materials with      maintenance, building new factories or purchasing new
better features, they may adversely affect the corporate       machines in order to continue running business further in
group’s turnover or result in possible state of losses.        the future.

Considering the importance of technologies and risks, the      Well aware of the necessity for risk management, the
Company, decided to invest in EPG Innovation Center Co., Ltd.  subsidiaries have insurance policy to prevent risks from
(“EIC”) to conduct research and product development for        unavoidable calamity and natural disaster. The subsidiaries
the corporate group. EIC has testing lab which is ranked       also implement preventive measures and other arrangement
as one of the biggest and most advanced polymer and            to ensure uninterrupted continuity of business in the event
plastic laboratory centers in Southeast Asia. Also, skilled    of unavoidable calamity and severe natural disaster directly
researchers are hired to research and develop products.        impact the company.

58
   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65