(MENAFN-Asia Times)
High-profile headlines like “U. S. Bans ‘High-Tech’ Companies from Building Facilities in China for a Decade” and “China’s Zero Covid Policies Cripple Its Economic Outlook” distract attention from the more mundane but arguably more important news coming from China.
These new advances come with the start of production of BASF’s new commercial complex in Zhanjiang and the final commissioning of ABB’s robotics plant in Shanghai, significant new European investments that go against the US “decoupling” trend. UU. de China.
On 6 September, BASF announced the opening of the first production plant at its Zhanjiang Verbund shopping complex in Guangdong Province in southern China. The plant is designed to produce 60,000 metric tons of engineering plastics a year, basically to supply China’s automotive and electronics industries. .
It will bring BASF’s annual engineering plastics in the Asia-Pacific region to 420,000 metric tons. Headquartered in Germany, BASF is the world’s largest chemical manufacturer.
Zhanjiang Verbund stretches for about nine square kilometers and the total investment is expected to reach 10 billion euros ($10. 1 billion) by 2030. This will be BASF’s largest foreign investment to date and the first heavy chemical industry assignment in China to be owned and operated through a foreign company.
“Verbund” is BASF’s technique for embedded manufacturing. As explained on the company’s website, “The guiding precept of the Verbund concept is to raise the price through the effective use of resources. At our Sites in Verbund, production plants, energy flows and curtains, logistics and infrastructure are all incorporated.
“Verbund’s formula creates effective price chains that stretch from basic chemicals to customer products. In this formula, chemical procedures use energy more effectively to achieve superior product yields and conserve resources. The by-products of a procedure are used as uncooked fabrics for the procedure. . In this way, we save on crude oil and energy, minimize emissions, reduce logistics costs and achieve synergies.
BASF recently operates six sites in Verbund: in Germany, Belgium, Texas, Louisiana, Malaysia and Nanjing. Zhanjiang Verbund will be the seventh and third largest in the enterprise.
According to Dr. Markus Kamieth, BASF’s Executive Director for Asia Pacific, “Zhanjiang Verbund will be built with the newest virtual technologies and the highest security standards. It will supply high-quality products with a low carbon footprint and identify more powerful business relationships. with consumers in Southern China, underscoring our commitment to the Chinese market.
A momentary plant committed to the production of thermoplastic polyurethanes is expected to come online in 2023. This will be followed by the structure of a steam cracker for the production of ethylene and other petrochemicals. BASF plans to supply all of Zhanjiang with renewable energy through 2025. The expansion and diversification of production is expected to continue until it is fully implemented until the end of the decade.
On September 2, China Daily reported that ABB’s new robotics plant in Shanghai is in the final phase of commissioning and is expected to be operational in the coming months. Built at a cost of around 150 million euros, it will be “a hub where robots make robots,” according to Sami Atiya, director of the robotics business.
A multinational company based in Zurich, ABB is also a leader in procedure automation, engine power transmission and electrification.
At the facility’s opening in 2019, ABB announced that it would be “the world’s most advanced, automated and flexible robotics industrial plant, the newest production processes and [with] the largest R-base.
The announcement continued:
ABB’s new plant is part of China’s 14th five-year plan, which aims to turn the country into “a global hub for robot innovation by 2025, combining an organization of leading corporations with foreign competitiveness and forming several business groups with foreign reach. “according to a document from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published in English through Pandaily, the Beijing-based generation media company.
In July, French aerospace giant Airbus announced it had secured orders for 292 A320 passenger jets from Air China, China Eastern, China Southern and Shenzhen Airlines, “demonstrating the recovery momentum and disgustingly wealthy customers of the Chinese aviation market. “
China Southern Airlines, which canceled orders for more than a hundred Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in May, ordered 96 new units. Boeing’s orders were reportedly canceled due to protection considerations and a dubious delivery schedule, however, in the eyes of many observers, the biggest explanation for why the policy.
The Chinese nationalist Global Times gloated:
“It’s natural for the American side to feel bitter after wasting the festival with Airbus. . . Who can be sure to have interaction in large-scale exchanges with a country that talks about ‘decoupling’, wields the stick of sanctions and occasionally introduces spending that restricts the industry with others out of thin air?”
Boeing lamented, “As the most sensible U. S. exporter with a 50-year relationship with China’s aviation industry, it is disappointing that geopolitical differences continue to restrict U. S. aircraft exports. “
Could European politicians, angry about Xinjiang and Taiwan, stick to the American example and sabotage the good fortune of European corporations in China?They have already done so, on one remarkable occasion.
In the third quarter of 2021, after the Swedish government banned the use of Huawei and ZTE’s 5G telecommunications devices in Sweden, Ericsson’s sales in China fell by 74% year-on-year. Its share of orders for China Mobile’s 5G radio network increased by 11%. to 2% and China’s contribution to its overall profit fell from one share to 4%.
Fortunately for Ericsson, China did not account for a significant percentage of its global business and strong demand for 5G devices in other countries offset almost everything it lost in China. However, it is hard to believe that a similar result with trading chemicals, robots and aircraft for European producers.
In June, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China released its most recent business confidence survey. It concluded that “while most European corporations in China have recorded positive revenues and have been successful in 2021, doing business is more complicated for most. “
This was basically due to Covid, but regulatory hurdles and uncertainty were also mentioned as reasons for dissatisfaction. Supply chains, the workforce and IT are localized. European leaders feel caught between the preference to rethink their exposure to China and the fact that it is too large a market to be abandoned.
Contrary to this conclusion, BASF, ABB and Airbus appear to be moving at full speed. Perhaps Europe’s alarming feast with sanctions against Russia will change its policy toward China.
Follow Scott Foster on Twitter at @ScottFo83517667
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