BIZCHINA / Overseas Investment
Akzo Nobel to open two chemical plants
By Wang Zhenghua (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-05-11 09:19
SHANGHAI: Akzo Nobel (AN), a Fortune 500 maker of healthcare products,
coatings and chemicals, is t
BIZCHINA / Center
China to face labor shortage
By Shangguan Zhoudong (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-05-11 16:08
China will face labor shortage in 2009, says a report issued yesterday by
the Institute of Population and Labor Economics under the Chinese Academy
of Social Sciences, the Beijing Times reported.
The shortage will trigger the growth of wages for rural laborers, the
report said.
Currently China only has a 52.12 million surplus in rural labor under 40
years-old, far lower than other media reports which estimated the number
to be around 100 to 150 million, said Cai Fang, director of the institute.
In recent years, China's labor force supply has changed from a time of
excessive supply to a state of demand-and-supply balance and soon to
enter an era of labor shortage in the near future.
The current labor shortage is starting from the coastal areas and
spreading to central regions of China, where most of the labor force
comes from.
Cai delivered a speech with the theme of China Employment Growth and
Structure Change at the 30th anniversary of the academy yesterday.
China's labor shortage also can be blamed on an aging population, an
earlier report said.
In the past 25 years, China's economy maintained high growth thanks to
sufficient numbers of young and middle-aged workers.
But today, China's aging population has reached the world's average
level, while per capita GDP is one fifth of the world average.
(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)
Learn Chinese online
o spend 250 million euros on two chemical
plants in China - the first confirmed investment in a new multi-site
establishment in East China.
Announced last October, the 50 hectare plot has been reserved within the
Chemical Industry Zone in Ningbo, a coastal city of Zhejiang Province.
The two new facilities, which will produce chemicals used in a wide
variety of industrial applications, will be the first constructed on
company's largest site worldwide.
AN plans to be the top player in China's covering material market, where
household consumption is growing at about 20 percent a year.
"Accelerating growth, particularly in the emerging markets, is one of the
company's main strategic priorities," said Leif Darner, the Akzo Nobel
board member responsible for the chemicals division.
"The scale of this substantial investment not only underlines the fact
that our growth strategy is gaining momentum, but also reinforces our
commitment to consolidating our leadership positions across all
businesses."
He said China is an important market for the company and that they have
to respond to a growing demand for their products. "We plan to make
further investments in grassroots chemical production facilities in
Ningbo at the appropriate time," he added.
Both plants, which will create several hundred new jobs, will utilize
state-of-the-art technology and will have to meet self-imposed standards
for eco-efficiency. One plant is expected to kick off production in 2009,
the other in early 2010.
"We are planning to build two world scale production facilities similar
in size and scope to our existing plants in Europe and the United
States," said Jo Lennartz, general manager of AN's functional chemicals
business. "We will also install the capacity to manufacture our own key
raw materials."
The company has chosen Ningbo because of its location near Shanghai and
its transport links that will enable AN to supply customers in China and
the entire Asia-Pacific region.
The Netherlands-based company, whose coatings business accounts for 75
percent of China sales, has been pushing aggressively in the country,
which has a crowded market of more than 7,000 manufacturers of decorative
coatings.
The company said its goal of grossing $1 billion in China by 2010 is
within reach.
China is now the world's second-largest chemicals market and is expected
to grow at 8 to 9 percent until 2015.
The local coatings market is also generating an impressive annual growth
rate of more than 8 percent, a trend likely to continue into the next
decade while the US and European markets flatten out.
(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)
Learn Chinese, Chinese School
