(Sabic) -- SABIC's Innovative Plastics business, Chongqing Xiyong Micro-electronics Industrial Park, and the Chongqing Economic and Informatization Commission announced a memorandum of understanding where SABIC would establish an engineering thermoplastics compounding plant in Chongqing, China. The move supports the Chinese government's 12th Five-Year Plan to expand into the country's western region and reinforces SABIC's commitment to build on its long heritage of serving this important marketplace with innovative and consistently high-quality materials solutions. Chongqing has already established itself as an important industrial hub for global computer, consumer electronics and automotive manufacturers - critical industry segments that SABIC has long served with local materials technology and manufacturing, application development expertise, and design assistance.
This is SABIC's third Chinese engineering thermoplastics investment this year. Earlier announcements include SABIC's memorandum of understanding with Sinopec to collaborate on polycarbonate production in China. A joint investment between both companies would fund a new polycarbonate product plant with an annual capacity of 260 kilo-metric tons. The second announcement was investments in new production lines for SABIC's Lexan polycarbonate resins and films in both Shanghai and Nansha in 2012. This comes on the heels of a similar Lexan compounding expansion in Nansha late last year.