21 December 2004

Orica Plans Up To 30 New Jobs For Hutt City

Orica New Zealand confirmed that its Consumer Products division will consolidate a number of their Australasian customer service centres into one operation on their current Gracefield site in Lower Hutt.

The announcement is the culmination of several months of intensive discussions that involved the company, Hutt City Council, Minister for Economic Development Jim Anderton, NZ Trade & Enterprise, Work and Income, Positively Wellington Business and WelTec, said Gary Craig, Hutt City Council City Development Manager.

Gary Craig said particular thanks had to go to Minister for Economic Development Jim Anderton, "who was able to cut through a lot of red tape and access the funding to make it all happen in a short time frame."

"We would not have been able to secure this vital new business for New Zealand without the Minister's explicit support of our application to the Regional Initiatives Fund," said Gary Craig.

Orica Project Manager Delys Tansley said the company had decided to consolidate a number of their Consumer Group's customer service centres in New Zealand and Australia into one operation. After consideration of a number of possible sites, the final choice came down to Lower Hutt or Sydney.

"We believed that Lower Hutt offered the best long term solution and so approached Hutt City Council to assist us in accessing potential economic development funding and assistance that could help offset higher initial risk factors and tip the balance towards Lower Hutt," said Delys Tansley.

"The result is that a number of central and local government agencies have worked together to develop a package that will result in upwards of 40 jobs and new investment in state of the art technology and facilities of approx. $2.5 million.

"I would particularly like to thank Hutt City Council's Gary Craig who facilitated the involvement of our company with all of the different agencies, and Minister for Economic Development Jim Anderton - there is little doubt that the funding and other assistance was instrumental in tipping the balance in Lower Hutt's favour."

The total package involves funding from the Government and Positively Wellington Business, for the training of up to 30 new staff taken from the registers of Work and Income.

Weltec has offered training assistance to new employees.

Orica is an Australian-owned publicly listed company with annual revenues of more than A$4 billion and a market capitalisation of approximately A$3.7 billion. Its consumer products include Dulux paints and Selleys building products.

ENDS

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