Malaysia's Top Glove starts pricing in euros

By Naveen Thukral

KLANG, Malaysia (Reuters) - Top Glove Corp (TPGC.KL: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the world's biggest rubber glove maker, has started pricing its products in euros for European customers after being hit by the weakening U.S. dollar, its Chairman said on Tuesday.

The firm expects revenue and net profit to rise 20 percent in 2008 and 2009, boosted by strong demand for its surgical gloves from Asia to Europe, Chairman Lim Wee-Chai said told Reuters in an interview.

"If the dollar had been stable, our income would have been much better," he said. "We have started selling in euros in the European countries this year, and we will change (over) slowly in other markets."

The dollar edged towards an eight-year low against Japan's yen on Tuesday, extending its sell-off as fresh signs of deterioration in credit markets hurt global shares and sparked unwinding of carry trades.

Speculation the Federal Reserve might lower U.S. interest rates from 3 percent before its scheduled meeting on March 18 spurred dollar selling.

Lim did not say how much of a hit the company had suffered due to the weakening greenback.

Top Glove is aiming to raise production capacity 25 percent to about 35 billion single gloves from 28 billion by the end of this year on surging demand for rubber gloves.

"Latin America, eastern Europe and Asian countries now use a lot of rubber gloves and the growth is very strong," Lim said from the company's headquarters in the port city of Klang.