KARACHI, Jan 25: Century Paper and Board Mills Limited (CEPB) will double its production capacity from 130,000 to 260,000 tons at an estimated cost of Rs7.5 billion, an announcement, made at the end of the board meeting that approved half yearly accounts ended December 31, 2005 on Wednesday, said.

“The mega investment project for a new coated-board manufacturing plant is expected to go into commercial production by March 2008,” the company said.

It said that the purpose to expand the plant was to meet the strong demand from printers and FMCG companies. Currently, this gap between demand and supply is being met through imports.

The new plant would be purchased from Daewoo. The project also includes a co-generation power plant to cater to the increased steam and power requirements.

To enable the existing shareholders to participate in the expansion project, the company said it had announced 100 per cent right shares. Analysts expected the right issue to be at a discount of at least 40 per cent to the current market price of Rs77 per share.