WestRock Co., Norcross, Ga., USA, this week announced plans to build a new corrugated box plant in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo to meet growing demand from its regional customers in South America.

"WestRock's corrugated packaging business in Brazil continues to perform well, with strong relationships with customers in attractive growth markets," said Steve Voorhees, CEO, WestRock. "Our new corrugated packaging plant will enable our exceptional team in Brazil to serve these customers even better in the future, with a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility that will provide new capabilities and efficiences for our customers, and to further integrate the containerboard that we manufacture in Brazil."

The new facility will be located in Porto Feliz and will serve all industry segments and markets both in the highly developed Sao Paulo region, as well other growing areas in Brazil's southeast region. Construction is expected to begin later this year and be completed in mid-2019. 

When completed, the Porto Feliz plant will replace the company's existing Brazilian corrugated operations in Valinhos. The plant will be integrated with the forestry and paper production operations of the Três Barras (Santa Catarina) mill and will increase the consumption of the mill's virgin fiber HyPerform corrugated paper, WestRock's high-performance paper line.