WORLD REPORTS

BASF Expands In Shanghai

Intel Plans $2.5 Billion Wafer Fab in China

GSK Footprint Grows In Singapore

Google is occupying a five-story office building in a Zurich complex formerly occupied by the Hurlimann brewery.

urich recently garnered recognition from Mercer Human Resource Consulting for having the highest quality of living in the world. The top honor, bestowed on the Swiss city for the sixth consecutive year, comes during a period of major corporate expansion activity.

   Google recently moved to expand its presence in Zurich by leasing a five-story office building in the city’s center. The site was formerly occupied by the Hurlimann brewery. The Internet search engine company plans to gradually occupy 127,000 sq. ft. (11,500 sq. m.) of office space. The Swiss site will be the company’s largest European engineering center.

   Google established its European research and development center in Zurich in 2004. It currently employs about 200, but Google expects that figure to grow substantially.

   Another Internet firm, Vasco, an Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.-based supplier of e-signature products and services, also recently announced that it would establish its European headquarters in Zurich.

   “As our growth rate has accelerated, we were looking for a location where the work and regulatory environments were favorable for businesses,” said T. Kendall Hunt, Vasco’s chairman and CEO. “We believe that Switzerland is such a place. We also believe that Switzerland not only offers a good market for our products, but is also centrally positioned in Europe, with strong gateways to Eastern Europe, Germany and southern Europe.

ndia’s JSW Steel Ltd. has several ongoing expansion projects in its home country. The Vijayanagar works expansion in Karnataka (pictured below) will take the plant’s steel-making capacity from 3.8 million tons per annum (mtpa) to 6.8 million mpta by 2009 and 10 mpta by 2010.

   JSW has also signed memorandums of understanding with the government of Jharkhand and West Bengal to establish greenfield projects of 10 mpta each in both locations over 12 years.

Yee Boon Yeow, group vice president, Performance Chemicals, Asia Pacific; Patrick M. Prevost, BASF president of Performance Chemicals and Dr. Karl-Heinz Boehning, general manager, BASF Auxiliary Chemicals Co. Ltd., China, participate in the groundbreaking ceremony for the manufacturing facilities of polyacrylate polymers and specialty chemicals for leather tanning in Pudong, near Shanghai.

ASF broke ground in March for two plants in Pudong, near Shanghai, which will manufacture polyacrylate polymers and specialty chemicals for leather tanning for the growing Chinese market.

   BASF expects to complete both plants in the first quarter of 2008. The polyacrylate polymers plant will have a minimum capacity of 30,000 metric tons per year, while the plant for specialty chemicals for leather tanning will have a minimum annual capacity of 12,000 metric tons of products in liquid or powder form.

   BASF also inaugurated its polyisocyanate plant at the Shanghai Chemical Industrial Park in Caojing, which will serve the Asia Pacific market.

   “By investing in additional local production capacity, we will be able to react more flexibly to fast-changing market conditions and to supply our customers more reliably with short lead time,” said Patrick Prevost, president of BASF’s Performance Chemicals division.

ntel Corp., which has had a presence in China for more than 22 years, plans a 300-millimeter wafer fabrication facility in the coastal northeast China city of Dalian in Liaoning Province. The $2.5-billion project will be Intel’s first wafer fab in Asia. It will also be the first time since 1992 that Intel has built a fab from the ground up at a new site. Intel says construction will begin on the China project, known as Fab 68, later this year, with production set to begin during the first half of 2010.

   “China is our fastest-growing major market and we believe it’s critical that we invest in markets that will provide for future growth,” said Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini.

GlaxoSmithKline recently opened a new medicinal chemistry laboratory at the Biopolis complex in Singapore.

laxoSmithKline (GSK) opened its new US$13-million medicinal chemistry laboratory in March at its R&D facility in Singapore’s biomedical research hub, Biopolis.

   “This new investment in GSK’s research and development facility will enhance our drug discovery capabilities in Singapore,” said Dr. Paul Chapman, director and head of GSK’s Center for Research in Cognitive and Neurodegenerative Disorders. “Our goal is to identify a clinical development candidate by the end of 2007, and we are on track to achieving that. The key drivers for GSK investing in Singapore are the quality of the research base and our access to high-quality graduates and researchers. GSK has chosen to increase our presence in Singapore because we are very pleased with our progress to date, and this investment reflects our confidence in the local biomedical research sector.”

   GSK aims to double the number of researchers hired to almost 60, with half of them locally sourced.

   Genentech also announced plans to build a $140-million plant in Tuas to manufacture Lucentis, a new biologic drug. The project raises Genentech’s planned investments in Singapore to $500 million.