Bayer MaterialScience invests €110m in five facilities in China

17 November 2010 11:37  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS)--Bayer MaterialScience will invest €110m ($149m) in five new downstream facilities in China by 2012 in response to increasing demand in the north of the country, the German manufacturer said on Wednesday.

The facilities will include three polyurethanes systems houses, to be built in Shanghai, Qingdao and Chongqing.

They also include a new polycarbonate sheet facility in Guangzhou and a polycarbonate colour compounding and design centre, which will be based in Chongqing.

Each would be strategically located close to major customers in Shanghai, Qingdao, Chongqing and Guangzhou, the company said.

Bayer did not disclose the planned capacities of the plants.

The company currently has a colour competence and development centre and a polyurethanes systems house in Guangzhou and a further systems house in Nanjing.

"Manufacturing activity is no longer limited to the east and south of China," said Peter Vanacker, a member of the Bayer MaterialScience executive committee and head of the global polyurethanes business.

"Many of our customers are opening facilities in the northern and central parts of the country [and] have asked that we continue to support them with customised solutions in these growing industrial regions. We believe it makes good business and economic sense to invest close to them," he added.

More than 40% of Bayer MaterialScience's polyurethanes business in China is currently achieved through supplying polyurethane systems to the construction, appliance and automotive sectors.

The Asia-Pacific region currently accounts for more than 60% of the world’s polycarbonate production, and Bayer said this figure was expected to rise to 65% by 2015, with China as the main driver of demand.

CEO Marijn Dekkers said in an interview in October that Asia, and particularly China, continued to gain in importance as a market for products from the company's MaterialScience business, and that the sub-group wanted to take advantage of this market trend.

($1 = €0.74)

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By: Hilde Ovrebekk
+44 20 8652 3214

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