March 30, 2007

Bayer Crop Science expands China investments 

Bayer Crop Science, a business unit of German industrial giant Bayer, aims to increase its sales revenue in China to 100 million euros (US$133 million) by 2010.

To do this, the company said it would invest EUR 25 million to expand its Hangzhou production site this year and next and set up two hybrid rice seed joint ventures in Sichuan and Jiangxi provinces.

Last year, Bayer Crop Science's sales revenue in China rose 46 percent to EUR 65 million as the company's insecticide product Regent became the top pesticide brand in China.

The Chinese agrochemicals market presents opportunities for profitable growth, said Friedrich Berschauer, chairman of the board of management at Bayer CropScience AG.

Over the past three years, Bayer almost doubled it sales in China and expects to achieve annual sales of more than EUR 100 million within the next four to five years.

Although the Chinese market accounts for only a small part of the company's global sales of 5.7 billion euros, Berschauer said China was one of its fastest growing markets.

The company's sales in the Asia-Pacific region shrunk by one percent in 2006 but sales growth in China and Southeast Asia nearly offset weaker development in Japan and Australia.