"In recent years, China's environmental supervision and implementation has been increasing, and it is good news for our foreign-invested enterprises. Foreign companies have always been the highest standard in the world for environmental protection and safe production. Now As the Chinese government continues to raise environmental protection requirements to the international level, we feel that there is a better, safer and more equitable environment for investment in Chinese factories.” Pan Rumin, President of Huntsman Polyurethanes Asia Pacific In the gap between the 10th China International Petrochemical Congress held in Hangzhou recently, I received an interview with the media (www.thepaper.cn) and exchanged views on environmental protection policies and business environment.
Founded in the United States in 1970, Huntsman Group (hereafter known as "Hensmag") offers chemicals, plastics, textiles, footwear, paints and coatings, and building materials. In 2018, the Huntsman Group's operating income was approximately $9 billion, of which 50% came from the Polyurethanes business unit.
"In recent years, China's environmental supervision and implementation has been increasing, and it is good news for our foreign-invested enterprises. Foreign companies have always been the highest standard in the world for environmental protection and safe production. Now As the Chinese government continues to raise environmental protection requirements to the international level, we feel that there is a better, safer and more equitable environment for investment in Chinese factories.” Pan Rumin, President of Huntsman Polyurethanes Asia Pacific In the gap between the 10th China International Petrochemical Congress held in Hangzhou recently, I received an interview with the media (www.thepaper.cn) and exchanged views on environmental protection policies and business environment.
Founded in the United States in 1970, Huntsman Group (hereafter known as "Hensmag") offers chemicals, plastics, textiles, footwear, paints and coatings, and building materials. In 2018, the Huntsman Group's operating income was approximately $9 billion, of which 50% came from the Polyurethanes business unit.
As the earliest global polyurethane giant in China, Huntsman's current investment in China has reached 15 billion yuan, and China has become Huntsman's second largest single country market in the world. In September 1992, Huntsman Polyurethane (China) Co., Ltd. was registered and established in Shanghai Minhang District Market Supervision Administration, becoming the first foreign technology service center in China's polyurethane industry. In July 2019, Huntsman was approved by the Shanghai government for regional headquarters certification.
On August 13, Shanghai issued the "Opinions of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government on Promoting the Development of Regional Headquarters of Multinational Corporations in the City" (hereinafter referred to as "Several Opinions"), which mentioned that the regional headquarters of multinational corporations are allowed to be in the cross-border capital pool. Under the business, the domestic and foreign funds of the member companies of the company will be operated centrally, and the business of fund collection, transfer, settlement, hedging, investment, financing, etc. will be carried out according to the business model of the group.
Pan Luxin said that this has relaxed restrictions on the headquarters fund pool and will facilitate the management of funds in the Shanghai regional headquarters. “In the years of development in China, we have registered 14 branches. The previously inconvenient places are mainly from the centralized operation and inflow and out of funds between branches.” For example, some branches need to allocate funds. After going abroad, it not only involves paying taxes, but also increases the time cost. “The reason why we want to set up a managed headquarters is to concentrate on some business and organization.”
Pan Luxin believes that the flexible freedom of use of funds is of great significance to regional headquarters. With such a pool of funds, not only the investment efficiency is improved, but also the financial planning for subsequent investment. At present, Huntsman has established 14 companies in China. The fund management and development of these branches will be placed under the framework of the Asia-Pacific headquarters to help Huntsman invest more in China.
In addition to R&D and management headquarters, Huntsman's production capacity in China is also expanding. In August 2018, Huntsman expanded its capacity in the second phase of the Shanghai MDI plant with a total investment of 750 million US dollars and a capacity of 240,000 tons. In November 2018, Huntsman laid the foundation of the composites plant in Tianjin and plans to complete the construction by the end of 2019. It was put into operation at the beginning of 2020, with a total investment of 130 million yuan and a production capacity of 70,000 tons.
In the past two years, the global demand for chemicals has been lowered. In the face of the weak global economy and the decline of the automobile market, Huntsman has gradually divested the upstream bulk chemicals including the titanium dioxide business and turned to breakthroughs in the downstream applications of the chemical industry. In this interview, Pan Lawin revealed to reporters that the new plant built in Taiwan, China is expected to be completed in mid-2020. The total capacity can be released to 33,000 tons per year, and 250 million PET plastic bottles can be recycled. At present, the proportion of PET plastics in Taiwan is the highest in the world, reaching 95%.
According to Pan Rumin, Huntsman has developed a recycling system and product solution. PET plastic bottles can be reacted to produce polyester polyol products after multiple treatment processes. Up to 60% of the product ingredients come from recycled PET plastic bottles. Lipopolyol is one of the important raw materials for the production of polyurethane materials. At present, Huntsman can effectively recycle 1 billion 500ml PET plastic bottles every year.
“The current capacity of the Taiwan plant is 33,000 tons/year. It is expected that the production capacity will be expanded at least twice within five years. We have started to conduct research on the Asian region.” Pan Lawin believes that it will be paved for Shanghai and 46 cities in China in the future. The classification and recycling of domestic waste that is carried out will make the environment for recycling products in the mainland better. According to the current implementation of waste separation and recycling in Shanghai, the future recovery rate may exceed 95%. “In the mainland, how to find the source of recycled materials is not a problem, and the conditions for building factories are very mature.”
"The potential of the Chinese market is very huge. At present, the world's largest GDP increase is still from China. For Huntsman, we will only continue to increase investment in China." Pan Lawin said.
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