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Thierry Le Hénaff, Arkema’s Chairman and CEO, inaugurated Arkema’s first R&D centre in China recently on the Changshu industrial site in the presence of the Chinese authorities. The centre will provide development capacities, as well as ideal local support for the Group’s customers in China and Southeast Asia.
Alongside the Group’s KTC (Kyoto Technical Center) in Japan, it bolsters Arkema’s growth ambition in Asia, with the Group looking forward to achieving almost 30% of its sales in fast growing regions by 2016. Ideally located 80km to the North West of Shanghai, the Changshu platform, Arkema’s largest industrial site in the world, now hosts an R&D Centre in close proximity to its customers in this strategic region.
The Changshu Research and Development Center (CRDC) offers geographic and technical complementarity with the Group’s nine other research and development centres, in particular the Kyoto centre in Japan, which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary. It helps speed up the development of customised products and solutions for Arkema’s customers in China and Southeast Asia in fast-growing markets, namely batteries, photovoltaics, electronics packaging, automotive, cable, sports and paint.
The CRDC includes application laboratories for batteries, membranes and coatings, a centre of excellence for thermoplastics, a process expertise centre (pilot reactor systems, polymerisation, distillation), as well as a training centre for customers.
