BASF Opens New Automotive Coatings Plant in Shanghai

BASF Coatings division opened a new, globally-oriented automotive coatings facility at the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park (SCIP) in Caojing, Shanghai. The €140 million project is an expansion of the existing automotive coatings facility, which is a joint venture between BASF and Shanghai Huayi Fine Chemical Co., Ltd. This expansion will further increase the company's local production capacity and serve the growing automotive market in China and Asia-Pacific. In 2016, the Asia-Pacific region produced 48.6 million light vehicle units, accounting for 52% of global production. Dirk Bremm, Head of BASF's Coatings division, said: "The global automotive market, of which China is the largest driver, is expected to continue to grow significantly." "The opening of this new facility in Shanghai will help us support the growth of our customers and play an active role in the development of the Chinese automotive market." The state-of-the-art facility will serve as a production hub for solvent-borne and water-based coatings and will be closely linked to the company's existing infrastructure for automotive coatings, resins and electrocoat production as well as R&D laboratories. Stephan Kothrade, Head of Functions Asia Pacific and Chairman of BASF's Board for Greater China, said: "With the addition of this new automotive coatings facility to our production cluster at SCIP, we have further strengthened our local production capacity to support our customer industries. Together with our business partners, we are contributing to facilitating innovative and sustainable development of China's industrial sector." The new production facility was designed to serve the Chinese automotive manufacturing market and will meet evolving industry needs. These include the transition from solvent-based to water-based coatings and from standard primer processes to integrated processes. This reduces the overall energy consumption of paint shops through the new functionalities of BASF's coating solutions. Peter Fischer, Senior Vice President, BASF Coatings Solutions Asia Pacific, said: "Our solutions are developed in our laboratories, simulated and tested in spray booths and application centers, and finally produced in our new facility. In this way, our Innovation Campus in Shanghai brings together the scientific research capabilities of our Asia-Pacific region very close to our customers."