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"China's Catcher Technology, one of the world's biggest suppliers of metal casings for Apple, Dell, Lenovo and Sony notebooks, yesterday announced it would shut one of its manufacturing plants in the Suzhou province after it was ordered to cease operations due to\u00A0environmental\u00A0issues connected with the factory.\r\n\r\nThe Financial Times reports\u00A0Chinese regulators forced the closure after local residents reported bad odours being pumped out of the plant, after the company issuing an emergency bulletin on Sunday.\r\n\r\nCatcher doesn't dominate the headlines as much as other companies in Apple's supply chain but the company is the main\u00A0manufacturer\u00A0of the company's aluminium unibody casings for the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, as well as casings for Acer ultrabooks and other major notebook vendors.\r\n\r\nThe manufacturer has already outlined how sales will be affected in October:\r\nCatcher said the shutdown will impact October sales by a fifth, assuming plant improvement works are completed and approved by regulators by the end of the month. The company had sales of T$21.8bn ($725m) last year, with analysts expecting an increase to T$37.1bn this year. Its stock fell by nearly the daily limit of 7 per cent on Monday.\r\nApple has come under fire in China, with environmental groups accusing the Cupertino-based company of utilising suppliers that contribute excessive levels of pollution in the country, something that has seen it engage environmental watchdogs to improve operations.\r\n\r\nThe shutdown marks an effort by Chinese regulators to bring suppliers in the country to task for their pollution levels. Whilst the closures will help\u00A0manufacturers\u00A0clean up their operations, a reduction in output could affect sales of Apple and other notebook vendors' product supply."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/10/17/apples-macbook-casing-supplier-shuts-down-plant-in-china-over-environmental-issues/>