High quality building materials for building houses in the Philippines

In the Philippines, the construction industry has become one of the country’s growth engines, with private residential and commercial construction constituting the most important basis. Various building materials, including gypsum plasterboard, however, must be imported from abroad. Gypsum plasterboard is used in interior construction to build light interior walls and to cover existing walls and installations.

Over the next 18 months, German SME Knauf is building a state-of-the-art factory in the province of Batangas, some 100 km south of Manila, with a capacity for producing 16 million m² of gypsum plasterboard. To begin with, the products are to be marketed exclusively in the Philippines.

For almost 15 years, DEG has helped Knauf to move into international markets and will be continuing this successful partnership with this new undertaking in the Philippines. Accordingly, DEG signed a EUR 10 million financing agreement in the Philippine Embassy in Berlin. This means that, as a co-shareholder of Knauf, it will be in a position to advance the company’s further internationalisation and to help it to overcome local challenges.