SABIC and Chongqing Government Sign Memorandum of Understanding To Build Engineering Thermoplastics Compounding Plant

SABIC’s Third Chinese Manufacturing Investment Announcement in 2011

BERGEN OP ZOOM, The Netherlands – November 3, 2011 – SABIC’s Innovative Plastics business, Chongqing Xiyong Micro-electronics Industrial Park, and the Chongqing Economic and Informatization Commission announced a memorandum of understanding where SABIC would establish an engineering thermoplastics compounding plant in Chongqing, China. The move supports the Chinese government’s 12th Five-Year Plan to expand into the country’s western region and reinforces SABIC’s commitment to build on its long heritage of serving this important marketplace with innovative and consistently high-quality materials solutions. Chongqing has already established itself as an important industrial hub for global computer, consumer electronics and automotive manufacturers – critical industry segments that SABIC has long served with local materials technology and manufacturing, application development expertise, and design assistance.

This is SABIC’s third Chinese engineering thermoplastics investment this year. Earlier announcements include SABIC’s memorandum of understanding with Sinopec to collaborate on polycarbonate production in China. A joint investment between both companies would fund a new polycarbonate product plant with an annual capacity of 260 kilo-metric tons. The second announcement was investments in new production lines for SABIC’s Lexan polycarbonate resins and films in both Shanghai and Nansha in 2012. This comes on the heels of a similar Lexan compounding expansion in Nansha late last year.

“We are in China, for China. In the more than 30 years we’ve operated in this region, we’ve cultivated long-term customer relationships that have helped make SABIC the first supplier many of the world’s leading OEMs call when designing their customers’ innovations,” said Charlie Crew, executive vice president, SABIC and head of SABIC’s Innovative Plastics business.” Our product portfolio includes thousands of resins and compounds with a wide range of performance properties to meet diverse industry and customer requirements. And we are constantly innovating to create new solutions to meet our customers’ evolving application needs.”

Huang Qifan, Chongqing Mayor, said “This compounding plant in Chongqing Xiyong Micro-electronics Industrial Park is SABIC’s third investment in China in 2011 to further enhance the electronics industry. It marks not only the settlement of another Fortune 500 company in Chongqing, but also the strong support from a world-class engineering thermoplastics provider to the industrial chain of Chongqing’s laptop industry. Here, on behalf of the Municipal Committee, the Government, and 23 million Chongqing citizens, I’d like to extend my most sincere congratulations and warmest welcome to SABIC for its successful establishment of the Chongqing manufacturing site.”

The new compounding plant, which is expected to be online in 2013, will produce several of SABIC’s world-class polycarbonate, polycarbonate blends and other high-quality engineering thermoplastics to provide easier access for southwest China customers. The site will have compounding lines, color development capabilities, and advanced equipment enabling SABIC to work with their customers and partners to create new applications for engineering plastics. Today, SABIC in Asia has 41 offices, 9 manufacturing sites and 5 Technology & Innovation Centers across 12 key Asian countries servicing a portfolio of customers across diverse industries.

About Saudi Basic Industries Corporation
Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) ranks among the world’s top petrochemical companies, and is a global market leader in the production of polyethylene, polypropylene, advanced thermoplastics, glycols, methanol and fertilizers. SABIC manufactures with a global footprint in Saudi Arabia, the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific. The company operates in more than 40 countries across the world with 33,000 employees worldwide. It has significant research resources with 18 dedicated Technology & Innovation facilities in Saudi Arabia, the USA, the Netherlands, Spain, India and China. SABIC recorded a net income of SR 21.59 billion (US$ 5.73 billion) in 2010, and sales revenues totaled SR 152 billion (US$ 40.5 billion).
About Innovative Plastics
SABIC’s Innovative Plastics strategic business unit is a leading, global supplier of engineering thermoplastics with an 80-year history of breakthrough solutions that solve its customers’ most pressing challenges. Today, Innovative Plastics is a multi-billion-dollar company with operations in more than 35 countries and approximately 9,000 employees worldwide. The company continues to lead the plastics industry with customer collaboration and continued investments in new polymer technologies, global application development, process technologies, and environmentally responsible solutions that serve diverse markets such as automotive, electronics, building & construction, transportation, and healthcare. The company’s extensive product portfolio includes thermoplastic resins, coatings, specialty compounds, film, and sheet. Innovative Plastics (www.sabic-ip.com) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC).
About Chongqing Xiyong Micro-electronics Industrial Park Co., Ltd.
Chongqing Xiyong Micro-Electronic Industrial Park, founded in August 2005, covering a land size of 40 km2, is located in Xiyong, one of the six sub city centers in Chongqing. It is a specialized industrial park planned by Chongqing Municipality to optimize its industrial structure and develop its high and new technological industries. Xiyong Park consists of the IT Industrial Park with PC manufacturing as the mainstay, the Integrated Circuit Industrial Park, the Software and Service Outsourcing Industrial Park, and the supporting urban center.

At present, Xiyong Park is striving to build into the growth pole and innovative engine of a new round of industrial development, and the opening-up experiment zone and demonstration zone of Chongqing as the inland economic central city. It is striving to realize the great development targets, i.e. an annual output of 80 million notebook PCs, an annual output value of USD 110 billion, an import & export volume of USD 80 billion, and an employment of 400,000 people by 2015.
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* Trademarks of SABIC Innovative Plastics IP B.V.

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This release was published on openPR.