PETALING JAYA (Nov 22): The world's largest rubber glove maker Top Glove Corp Bhd, which targets 30% of global market share by 2020 from the 25% presently, will focus on increased automation and hiring highly qualified researchers.

Speaking at the FMM Factory Management Conference 2016, Top Glove chairman Tan Sri Dr Lim Wee Chai expressed the company's desire to improve its business processes in the wake of increased challenges faced by the manufacturing industry.

He explained that the glove business industry had become more competitive.

"I remember 20 years ago we used to produce rubber gloves with heavy cost and with quality that was not as good as now. Twenty over years ago the price was US$80 (RM353.32) for a carton of 1,000 gloves. Today the export price is about US$20. Can you imagine? The price dropped so much. But the quality is better. We have no choice but to reduce the cost. If we don't reduce it, we'll be out from the market. So we have no choice but to [continue to] invest in research and development.

"Why do so many [in the field] leave Malaysia for other countries? There are not enough factories in Malaysia. We [also] need to invest in more factories in the country" said Lim.

Lim said Top Glove hires 200 to 300 fresh graduates every year and aims to hire more than 300 next year.

"Investing in local talent is good for [the] long run. We need to reduce the number of foreign workers that we hire," he said.

"We [can] save a lot; over the past three years we've saved [hiring] 1,000 workers. Now one worker costs RM2,000. So 1,000 can save us RM2 million a month. In a year we can save RM24 million. In 10 years we can save 240 million. There's a lot to save. So it's the right direction to invest in automation. However, automation requires research. So research requires hiring [more] graduates, scientists, chemists," he added.

Asked whether he was pleased with the quality of local graduates, Lim commented, "University Malaya produces good graduates. [However,] they can be better, compared to German graduates for example."

"Hiring foreign workers [involves] cost that is very high. The quality of product is not consistent as compared to products produced by automation. In the long term the cost will go down," he added.

The company currently owns and operates 28 factories across Malaysia, Thailand and China with a total of 500 production lines and production capacity of 46.6 billion pieces of gloves per annum. It serves a growing network of over 2,000 customers in 200 countries. As at Sept 26, 2016, Top Glove's market capitalisation stood at RM6 billion or US$1.5 billion.

Top Glove was recently listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) on June 28, 2016.

At 3.07pm, Top Glove dipped 1 sen or 0.19% to RM5.26 with 1.73 million shares traded.