Gallus moves Screeny to new Swiss plant.

The Gallus Group will invest 12 million Swiss francs (US$9.9 million) in a new production facility for screen printing plates. The new plant will be located in Herisau, Switzerland, not far from the company's headquarters in St. Gallen.

Gallus, a manufacturer of narrow web label presses, also has a screen-printing supply division. The company will move the screen printing plate business into a new production facility in the Herisau plant of Huber+Suhner, a manufacturer of systems for electrical and optical connectivity. By 2007, Gallus officials note, the worldwide supply of the company's Screeny plates will come from the new plant. The company anticipates that the planned investment in systems and process technologies will provide the foundations for further innovations in screen-printing, as well as ensure long term supply.

Since 1999, Gallus has been in partnership with Heidelberger Druck-maschinen AG, the world's largest manufacturer of printing presses. The Gallus Group employs about 500 people, 300 of them in Switzerland.