Lanxess spending Euro 5 million on rubber centre in Shanghai

Shanghai, Peoples' Republic of China-Lanxess AG is investing Euro 5 million in a new technology centre in Shanghai for its Technical Rubber Products Business Unit. The investment, and the group's transfer of its rubber technology centre from Singapore to Shanghai, will allow Lanxess to meet the needs of the market and its customers even more effectively,” said Dr Axel Heitmann, Lanxess chairman.

"China is becoming increasingly important for us as a technology location as well," Heitmann commented, as he also announced that by 2006, Lanxess would set up a Euro 20-million plant to make 20 kilotonnes per annum of high-tech engineering plastics in Wuxi in China.

The Lanxess Technical Rubber Products group supplies speciality elastomers for the rubber processing industry with a broad product range for diverse applications.

Other Lanxess rubber projects in China include a joint venture in Tongling to produce rubber chemicals for the rapidly growing tyre market. This operation, with Chinese partner TongFeng and established chemicals producer Xinda, is scheduled to start production in the second half of 2006.

The group also has a joint venture with Weifang Yaxing Chemical Co. Ltd, which is becoming a leading company in the Chinese hydrazine hydrate market. A complete US production plant, dismantled and shipped to China, is currently being constructed in Weifang in Shandong province and production should start by the end of 2005, Lanxess said.