German-based Bayer AG expects its healthcare business will account for nearly half its portfolio after the group's ¤17-billion (Bt816.5 billion) acquisition of Schering last month, according to Werner Wenning, chairman of the board of man-agement, told a press conference in Shanghai this month.

Bayer Group has major three business units: healthcare, agriculture and materials science. Healthcare generated income averaging 47 per cent of its total sales of ¤30 billion in 2005, with 33 per cent of sales from materials science and 20 per cent from agriculture.

However, Bayer Group has continued to expand its investment in materials science, especially in the petrochemical industry in Asia-Pacific. The company has a huge investment budget of ¤6 billion for Asia from 1994 till 2010. More than half of that, or ¤3.4 billion, has been invested since 2001 in China to establish an integrated polymer production at Shanghai Chemical Industry. The rest of the investment budget is for other countries in Asia-Pacific such as Taiwan, Japan, India and Thailand.

Frank Grunert, head of marketing of the polyurethanes

business unit of the Asia-Pacific materials-science division, said the company would promote Thailand within the Bayer house system as a maker of formulate polyurethane. The Bayer house system will service Southeast Asian customers in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia. The projects will be set up at the end of 2006 and start to operate in mid-2007.

He declined to disclose the investment to set up the Bayer house system in Thailand as studies were still under way.

Bayer has a polycarbonate plant in Map Ta Phut in Rayong province that has a production capacity of 200,000 tonnes a year.

This was the first polycarbonate plant in Asia-Pacific, and the group opened a second polycarbonate plant this month at Shanghai Chemical Industry Park. The Shanghai plant now has a total production capacity of 100,000 tonnes a year and will expand to 200,000 tonnes by 2008.

Grunert said the polycarbonate plant in China would serve demand in that country which accounted for 20 per cent of the global demand of 650,000 tonnes last year. It will supply

half the demand in the Asia Pacific region. Demand for polycarbonate in China is expected to increase an average of 18 per cent a year.

Polycarbonate is a raw material for auto parts, CDs, DVDs and many other products.

Meanwhile, Bayer Group has invested in construction of a polyurethanes plant in Thailand, and that will open in the middle of next year.

Polyurethanes are a raw material for automotive parts, footwear, the refrigeration industry and other home-appliance products.

Wenning said that Bayer had a very strong interest in the Asia-Pacific region because that was the largest market for its three business areas.

Bayer's business in Asia-Pacific recorded sales of ¤4.6 billion in 2005, or 15.5 per cent growth from 2004.

The region accounted for 17 per cent of Bayer's global sales.

In Thailand, Bayer Group announced total sales of Bt36.6 billion at the end of last year, with 90 per cent of these sales from materials science, 5 per cent from agriculture, 3 per cent from healthcare and 2 per cent from others businesses such as ser-vices.

Somluck Srimalee

The Nation

Shanghai