Chemical producer Solutia Inc Friday launched a plant for plastic interlayers to supply automotive makers in the eastern city of Suzhou.
The facility produces polyvinyl butyral (PVB) interlayers, used for laminated safety glass, with annual capacity of about 10 million square meters. The capacity could supply about 7.5 million cars.
This is Solutia's first newly built plant worldwide in a decade, said Jeff Quinn, chairman, president and CEO of Solutia, based in St Louis, Missouri.
He declined to say how much the plant cost to build.
The plant has room for future capacity to serve the architectural market as well.
When laminated between layers of glass, PVB interlayers could enhance the performance characteristics of glass, providing benefits such as security, solar protection, sound attenuation and safety.
In China, the plant sells products to leading glass makers like Fuyao Glass Industries.
In addition to the new plant in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, Solutia's PVB interlayer business presence in the Asia Pacific includes a customer service center and finishing and distribution center in Singapore, and sales offices across the region.
Solutia is the world's leading manufacturer and marketer of PVB interlayers. It competes with Japan's Sekisui Chemical Co, which also has a plant in Suzhou.
Foreign firms occupy much of the higher end of China's specialty chemicals market and their dominance is unlikely to be challenged largely in the medium term due to their strengths in services and support - the principal source of added value in the sector, according to a KPMG report.