Business

Wednesday November 4, 2009

BASF banks on automotive, electronics and electrical sectors for growth

By ZAZALI MUSA


JOHOR BARU: BASF Southeast Asia Pte Ltd is banking on the automotive as well as electronics and electrical sectors in the region to drive growth in the coming years.

Hermann Althoff, vice-president of Engineering Plastics Asia Pacific, a unit of BASF, said the rapid growth of India and China would push up consumption of automobiles as well as electronics and electrical items.

This would, in turn, boost demand for products of BASF, the world’s biggest chemicals company, he said at a briefing in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the group’s engineering plastics compounding plant here.

Althoff noted that auto sales in India and China had increased despite the economic downturn, in contrast to falling sales in Japan, Europe and the United States.

He also observed that the use of polyamide car components were low in China at 5kg per vehicle compared with 25kg in Europe, which indicated plenty of room for growth for such components.

“Apart from the two sectors, demand will also come from the building and construction sector as well as consumer products such as furniture and kitchenware,’’ he said.

According to Althoff, BASF has also been negotiating to supply parts and components to Proton Holdings Bhd and Perusahaan Otomobil Kedua Sdn Bhd.

BASF’s Pasir Gudang factory, built 10 years ago, was the first engineering plastics compounding plant that the company built in Asia.

It has added three more plants since – in South Korea, China and India.

A product development centre had also been set up at the Pasir Gudang plant which focuses on the development of innovative engineering plastics to suit specific market needs in the Asia-Pacific.

BASF’s Pasir Gudang plant exports 90% of its production, with Japan and Asean taking up 60% of its shipments.

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