Although it is only a small component of the company’s Asia strategy, the ion exchanger plant planned for the state of Gujarat in India will by no means be an unimportant one. Construction of the approximately €30 million facility will commence at the Jhagadia Chemical Park near Baroda in the second quarter of 2008. Production is scheduled to begin in early 2010 with around 200 new employees. “We are entering one of the most rapidly growing and promising sectors of the industrial chemicals market,” says Rainier van Roessel, the LANXESS Board of Management member responsible for this field. “We want to generate profitable growth and further strengthen our already good position on the world market.”

Once it is completed, the plant will manufacture products for industrial water treatment and for creating extra-pure water for the semi-conductor and pharmaceuticals industries. The portfolio of anion, cation and mixed bed exchangers will encompass part of the Ion Exchange Resins Business Units’ range of ion exchanger products. In addition, LANXESS plans to relocate its rubber chemicals production from Thane to Jhagadia. Beginning in 2010, the new plant will supply rubber chemicals to India’s rapidly growing tire market, making LANXESS the only Western company in the country to do so. Jhagadia will then be LANXESS’ second, and largest production facility in India — the first is the plant at Madurai in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Altogether, LANXESS will invest around €50 million in the new location in Jhagadia.