Stahl has officially started the construction of its Center of Excellence for Performance Coatings in Suzhou, China.
During a festive foundation stone ceremony, Hagen Chen, Managing Director Greater China & Asia Pacific at Stahl, laid the first stone.
The building of 916m2 is expected to be completed in September 2018.
The company’s second Center of Excellence in China will expand its capacities to work side by side with partners to anticipate the growing demand for products and solutions that have less impact on the environment.
"During the past seven years, our business of performance coatings solutions in China has been growing enormously, especially in the automotive industry, like applications for seat and trim, elastomer coatings, and flock adhesives,” Chen said.
"Every day we get more requests from our customers, brands and OEM’s for products and solutions that have less impact on the environment.
"The new Center of Excellence provides our customers better services with state-of-the-art testing machinery to develop new solutions, for example our water-based STAHL EVO products.
"Our STAHL EVO portfolio contains hazardless solutions such as VOC-free, low-smell water-based and highly solid products including resins, cross-linker, pigments, and additives.”
Besides the automotive industry, the new facility anticipates the growing demand for packaging film and paper, synthetic materials, coated fabrics, textiles, and speciality applications like medical and supportive gloves in China.
Huub van Beijeren, CEO of Stahl, adds: "Today, China occupies an important position in the world as a driver of more sustainable development.
"We strive to make coating solutions with the lowest possible impact in terms of people‘s health and the environment.
"We are therefore proud to open another Center of Excellence in China, which will enable us to help our customers even better to comply with the latest regulations for their products and go beyond.
"We strongly believe in working closely together with clients and partners to provide tailor-made solutions that address all challenges in technical performance, sustainability, and aesthetics.
"With a centre in Suzhou, our experts will always be nearby to cater for the industry with smart and innovative solutions.”
In addition to the factory in Suzhou that opened ten years ago, Stahl also has a Center of Excellence in Guangzhou, which specialises in solutions for leather.
These centres enable Stahl to combine strengths with local partners in order to create high-quality solutions for the automotive, apparel and home furnishing industries.
