BASF aims to invest more than Euro 1bn ($1.3bn) in additional plants in China in the next few years, as the world s largest chemicals maker by sales eyes expansion in the rapidly growing region where its factories are running at full steam.
The German chemicals maker will invest Euro 2bn-plus into its 100 Asian sites by 2014, at least half of which will flow into China, Martin Bruderm ller, executive board member and head of BASF s Asia-Pacific operations told the Financial Times.
We are certainly in discussions about building new plants in Asia. If you want to keep the growth pace you have to invest, said Mr Bruderm ller, the Hong Kong-based manager who next year will become deputy chief executive.
Asia made up 23 per cent of BASF s Euro 39.6bn chemical sales in the first nine months of this year. By 2020, the group expects to generate Euro 20bn of its forecast Euro 92bn of revenues from the region. About half of its Asian sales come from China.
J rgen Hambrecht, BASF s outgoing chief executive, recently lifted the group s profit forecast on the back of rapidly growing sales in China and the US in particular.
The group has invested Euro 3.5bn in its third-largest global market in the past 20 years more than a fifth of overall German direct investment into the Middle Kingdom.
The chemicals maker is currently spending $1.4bn on expanding its Nanjing site with the help of one of its joint venture partners, Sinopec.
It is also planning to build a new plant in Chongqing, where it is still in the middle of a lengthy regulatory approval process. Mr Bruderm ller said he expected to receive a go-ahead from authorities very soon.
CITATION http://www.chinaleather.org/eng/show.php?itemid=5595
