Positive 2022 to all

It’s great to be working in an industry with positive market indicators and a real sense of optimism! All helped by the latest building consent data reaching new records for each of the last 10 months.

Residential consent data for the year to December 2021 set a record of 48,899 consents. The market value for the 12 months to December is $21.2b, up 29% year on year. New Non-residential (Commercial) consents for the year to December 2021 set a record high of $8.2b, up 16% year on year. This indicates demand will remain strong and the industry buoyant over the next 12+ months.

This is all positive news of course but does not mean our freight and supply challenges will disappear, so we want to assure you this is and will remain our number one focus for the year ahead.

As always, we also plan to bring you some innovation as well with several new products in 2022 across Melteca®, wall linings and our benchtops portfolio. Our first product launch is in April with an exciting update to our Laminex Laminate range. Look out for 29 contemporary new decors and finishes, with matching ABS edgetape.

It’s fantastic to see strong interest in the new Melteca panels range launched in November last year. This year we are rolling out 1mm ABS and laser edgetape for all Melteca decors. We’re preparing to launch a new Melteca plate and will share more details about its availability soon.

We’ve also expanded our popular Laminex™ Acrylic Panel range to include a 26mm panel and there is a 31 x 1mm ABS and 31 x 1.2mm laser to edge these sheets. Our Laminex™ Woodgrain Collection range is also available in 25mm panels with matching 31 x 1.2mm laser edgetape for all decors and 31 x 1mm ABS edgetape.

We are delighted to be the Host sponsor for the 2022 Master Joiners Conference being held in Marlborough in September. The conference has a strong focus on inspiring development and leadership in the industry.We’re looking forward to presentations on resilience, succession planning, talent pipelines and leading people through change, challenge, and adversity. All very relevant in this current market where many businesses are facing issues around recruiting and retaining staff. We look forward to seeing you all there.

Thanks to everyone who has participated in our customer survey, we have another one launching in March. We appreciate your feedback and carefully consider it to make further improvements to the way we do business with all our customers. Top of the list is managing our global supply chain to better serve all our customers.

We’ve got robust plans in place to manage our business through the next period of potential disruption and will do everything we can to minimise the impact to our team, our customers, and our suppliers. Here’s to a great year ahead for our industry!

Mike Arthur General Manager Laminex New Zealand