German chemicals giant BASF unveiled a new strategy on Tuesday, in which China will play a key role as the world's largest chemicals market.
China currently has a share of 40 percent in the global chemicals market, and BASF is planning to expand there.
"By 2030, China's share of the market will increase to nearly 50 percent and we want to participate in this growth," Martin Brudermueller, chairman of the board of executive directors, told reporters.
He added that BASF's new Verbund site in Zhanjiang, Guangdong provinces and the expansion of its Nanjing site would both "significantly enhance our growth in this dynamic market".
During the first presentation of the strategy at the company's Ludwigshafen headquarters, BASF announced that it was setting a range of financial and non-financial targets for the coming years. These included growing at above-market rates while keeping its CO2 levels flat at the current 2018 level until 2030.
"With our new strategy, we are setting BASF on a course for growth," Brudermueller said.
Brudermueller, however, said that even though his company was "targeting considerable annual production growth", it would nonetheless commit to ambitious environmental goals.
BASF wants to further increase profitability and is aiming for an annual increase in earnings before interest taxes and depreciation (EBIDTA) before special items of between 3 percent and 5 percent, and a return on capital employed well above the cost of capital percentage.
"This means we create true added value," said Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Hans-Ulrich Engel.
BASF said it would concentrate on organic business growth with a focus on building a customer-oriented and agile organization.
In order to achieve higher sales while simultaneously reducing its CO2 footprint, BASF plans to "decouple" its greenhouse gas emissions from organic growth.
Towards this end, the company said it would improve the management, efficiency and integration of its plants and, wherever possible, purchase a greater share of electricity from renewable energy sources.
"Given the already very high technological standards at our plants, this is a very ambitious goal that will require exceptional creativity to do things differently," Brudermueller noted.
Amongst others, it would require a suitable regulatory environment in Germany, Europe and around the world. - xinhuanet.com -