Bayer CropScience, a business unit of German industrial giant Bayer, aims to increase its sales revenue in China to 100 million euros by 2010.
The company said it would invest 25 million euros to expand its Hangzhou production site this year and next to achieve the sales target. It will also set up two hybrid rice seed joint ventures in Sichuan and Jiangxi provinces. The company did not disclose further details of the two joint ventures.
Last year Bayer CropScience's sales revenue in China was 65 million euros, an increase of 46 percent from 2005. The company's insecticide product Regent has become the No 1 brand in China. The Chinese agrochemicals market presents us with some good opportunities for profitable growth, said Friedrich Berschauer, chairman of the board of management at Bayer CropScience AG, adding that the company would maintain its investment in research and development to tailor products to the market.
Over the past three years, we were able to almost double our sales in China. We expect to achieve annual sales of more than 100 million euros within the next four to fi ve years, he said.
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.
In 2006 the company's sales in the Asia-Pacific region declined by 1 percent, but sales growth in China and Southeast Asia nearly made up for weaker development in Japan and Australia.
