Central Europe's booming consumer goods market has helped Henkel's CEE operations to escape job cuts announced by its German mother company on Wednesday, according to dpa. "This growth protects us," Henkel CEE President Guenter Thumser said at a press conference in Vienna. The 3,000 job cuts worldwide vy the producer of detergents and other household goods, were more likely to affect regions where there had been less growth, he was quoted as saying by the Austrian press agency. Henkel CEE cracked the 2-billion-euro sales mark in 2000 and plans to increase sales to 3 billion euros by the end of 2009, the company said. For 2008, the company plans to invest 150 million euros (222.3 million dollars) in the CEE region, mainly in the construction of two new plants in Russia, and one in the Ukraine, Romania and Kazakhstan, respectively. The Vienna-based CEE subsidiary is in charge of 32 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus region as well as Turkey. In 2007, CEE sales grew by 17.7 per cent to 2.21 billion euros, with the strongest markets being Poland, Russia and Turkey, compared to an overall sales growth by 2.6 per cent. Henkel CEE is the second largest producer of detergents in the CEE region and market leader for glues and hair products.
