Crown Holdings Announces New Beverage Can Plant in Tunisia

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Crown Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CCK) today announced it will construct a new beverage can plant in North Africa. Crown and Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Bros. will each hold a 50% share in the Tunisian investment.

"Crown is the ideal partner for us. Since 1979 we have worked successfully with them on four joint venture operations in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan," stated Mr. Saud Algosaibi, Managing Director of Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Bros. Mr. Algosaibi further commented, "Crown has considerable industry reputation based on technology innovation that we have experienced first hand, so we are confident that working together on this project will be an exciting and successful venture."

Located on a greenfield site in El Agba, in the Tunisian capital of Tunis and close to the main container port, the plant will produce 202 and 211 diameter beverage cans in multiple sizes for the Maghreb region of North Africa. The plant, which is expected to be operational by mid-2005, will have an initial annual capacity of 635 million cans and will expand Crown's European, Middle Eastern and African beverage can business to thirteen plants across nine countries.

Mr. Abdessalem Mansour, from the Tunisian Foreign Investment Promotion Agency (FIPA), commented, "We are very pleased that Crown and the Algosaibi Group have chosen Tunisia as the location for this major new investment and we will be offering our full support to them to make this exciting venture a success."

Crown Holdings, Inc., through its affiliated companies, is a leading supplier of packaging products to consumer marketing companies around the world. World headquarters are located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

SOURCE Crown Holdings, Inc.