Huayi group values patent technology
By Chen Qide (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-06-22 11:30

Huayi Group Company, one of China's chemical giants, set up a technology research institute over the weekend as part of its technical creation system aiming to compete with overseas counterparts showing strong presence in China.

The institute, which merges all of the company's technical strengths, is aimed at creating more patent technologies, said Huayi Chairman Zhang Peizhang.

"We need our own high-tech patents to compete with overseas counterparts which have got a firm foothold on the Chinese market," Zhang said.

"We have no way out if we just rely on imports of foreign technologies," he said.

In the 1980s and 1990s, many of Huayi's enterprises launched projects by using foreign technologies and equipment, but their gains didn't make up for what they had spent.

"The problem is they had no patent technologies to compete with counterparts on the world market," he said.

Take an acrylic acid plant affiliated with Huayi as an example which, with a registered capital of 10 million yuan (US$1.2 million), launched an imported 30,000-ton acrylic acid facility in 1993 at a cost of 1.22 billion yuan (US$148 million).

Heavy bank loans put the plant in a dilemma because of a 99 per cent assets and liabilities rate, losing about 50 million yuan (US$6 million) annually.

By working to its own strengths, the plant has developed a new patent 30,000-ton acrylic acid facility with an investment of more than 100 million yuan (US$12 million).

The plant generated sales of 1.4 billion yuan (US$169 million) and profits of 90 million yuan (US$11 million) last year.

Huayi President Zhou Bo said the plant is expected to produce 70,000 tons of acrylic acid and 120,000 tons of acrylate this year. They are used as raw materials for production of coating, paint and resin.

Huayi is building a new facility. When it is completed by the end of next year, the plant will have the capacity to produce 300,000 tons of acrylic acid and acrylate a year.

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