China has approved an ethylene project by Taiwan Plastic Corp. (TPC) in Beijing's biggest deal with a foreign firm, Japan's Kyodo News Agency reported.
Meanwhile, China has completed building four ethylene plants with combined capacity of 1.2 million metric tons/year, said China's Xinhua News Agency.
TAIWAN FIRM'S DEAL
Quoting sources in Hong Kong, Kyodo said the deal with TPC is seen as pivotal to expanding ties between China and Taiwan.
Chinese authorities and TPC Chairman Wang Yung-Ching signed an agreement last month covering construction during the next 3 years of a 1.27 million metric ton/year ethylene plant in Fujian province, Kyodo said.
Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping earlier approved the project in an investment zone in Haicang, Xiamen district, Fujian, aimed exclusively at Taiwanese businessmen.
It is not clear whether the project cost, pegged by Kyodo at $7 billion, includes about $5 billion the Chinese government has spent to improve the industrial infrastructure in and around the investment zone.
ETHYLENE PLANTS COMPLETED
Completion by China Petrochemicals Corp. (CPC) of four 300,000 metric ton/year ethylene plants makes China the ninth biggest ethylene producer in the world, Xinhua claimed. When fully on stream, the plants in Shanghai and Heilongjiang, Shandong, and Jiangsu provinces will boost China's ethylene capacity to 1.925 million metric tons/year from 725,000 metric tons/year in 1985.
With the added ethylene capacity, CPC will be able to hike its capacity, in metric tons per year, for plastics 1.43 million, rubber 140,000, fibers 680,000, and other derivatives 2.26 million.
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