The Life Sciences and Materials Sciences Company Royal DSM N.V announced today that it has held a grand ground breaking ceremony for its new Jinling DSM Resins facility. The new facility will be among the largest manufacturing plants for composite resins in the world. Focusing on the continued strong demand for high-end resins in all the application segments, the new facility will boost the sustainable development of the composite resins industry in China.

Jiangsu Province has become the strategic focus of DSM’s business in China. DSM has a number of manufacturing sites in Jiangsu Province, in cities including Jiangyin, Kunshan, Wuxi and Nanjing. Jinling DSM Resins is a joint venture of DSM and Sinopec, and leads China in special UPR and Vinyl ester resins. Both parties have invested around 50 million euros in total to set up a new composite resins facility with a capacity of 100 thousand tons in Nanjing Chemical Industry Park. DSM holds 75% of the shares in JDR, and Sinopec Assets Management Co. Ltd holds 25%. The new facility is expected to come on stream in early 2012.

Stefan Doboczky, a member of the DSM managing board with responsibility for the DSM business in Asia, commented: “As one of the high-growth economies, China is a very important stage for DSM to develop its local business partnerships and accelerate expansion to achieve its 2015 strategy - ‘DSM in Motion: Driving Focused Growth’. Through this investment, DSM has further strengthened its strategic partnership with Sinopec, and it’s a solid step toward our 2015 targets of USD3 billion sales revenue in China.”

Michael Effing, Business Unit Director DSM Composite Resins added: “In the past few years, China has seen rapid growth in the areas of transportation, wind energy, pipe and relining and building and construction, resulting in continually increasing demand for environmental high-end composite resins. The new facility will expand our current capacity, strengthen our position in the composite resins market and drive the composite resins industry to the next level in China.”

This investment has benefited from the close attention of Nanjing local government and the Dutch government. Maxime Verhagen, First Vice Premier and Minister for Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation of the Netherlands, participated in the ground breaking ceremony, breaking the ground and cutting the ribbon for the new facility together with leaders of local government, DSM and Sinopec Jinling Petrochemical Corporation.

Mr Da-fu Zhang from Sinopec Jinling Petrochemical Corporation commented at the ceremony: “Sinopec and DSM have made great achievements and have accumulated rich experience in previous long-term strategic partnerships with each other. I have great confidence in a bright future ahead for our composite resins business in China.”