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BASF Opens Regional Centre in Malaysia

Posted on: Wednesday, 24 August 2005, 00:00 CDT

GERMANY'S BASF Aktiengesellshaft wants 20 per cent of its global sales in

the chemical business to come from Asian markets by 2010.

Its newly-launched Asia-Pacific service centre in Malaysia will play a

major role in meeting that target, BASF executive director Dr Andreas

Kreimeyer said.

"We are aiming to see 70 per cent of the sales to be generated from

production in the region in five years," he told reporters after the

launch of BASF Asia-Pacific Service Centre Sdn Bhd in Kuala Lumpur

yesterday by International Trade and Industry Deputy Minister Datuk Mah

Siew Keong.

Some Euro21 million (Euro1 = RM4.60) will be invested in the centre

for, among others, setting up organisation structure, transfer of staff

and services, installing software and hardware as well as properties.

Kreimeyer said BASF had since 1990 spent about Euro5.6 billion to

expand and strengthen production, marketing, sales and research and

development network in Asia-Pacific.

"Together with partners, this amounts to Euro7 billion. In Malaysia we

invested over Euro1 billion," he said.

These investments have started to pay off with Asia already

contributing 16 per cent to BASF's global sales in the chemical business

and 57 per cent of Asia-Pacific sales are produced locally.

He said the regional service centre will ensure streamlined and

standardised processes across the region that are easily scalable to

support the growth of BASF's business and also assure increased service

quality and flexibility.

"By integrating and centralising services that are currently provided

on a local basis by more than 53 companies in the region, BASF will

strengthen its overall competitiveness and accelerate its growth momentum.

"Our service centre will be responsible for providing support services

in finance and accounting, information technology and systems, and human

resources to BASF subsidiaries and affiliates in 15 countries in

Asia-Pacific," he said.

Kreimeyer said the company chose to establish the regional service

centre in Kuala Lumpur because of its excellent business environment and

infrastructure, competitive costs structure and skilled workforce with

business and language skills.

Services have already commenced at the service centre, he said, with

BASF Malaysia the first to transition some of its finance and accounting

tasks to the regional centre in June, followed by information systems in

July and human resources services this month.

"We hope that by end 2006, all our subsidiaries in the region would

have transitioned these services to the regional centre.

"If all these transitions prove successful, we may look into the role

of the service centre on a global basis," he said.

He said the number of employees handling the service centre is expected

to reach 400 by the end of next year from the current 130 employees of

which 95 per cent will be Malaysians.

BASF has 30 wholly-owned subsidiaries and 23 joint ventures in

Asia-Pacific with over 9,000 employees.

Last year, the company's sales in Asia Pacific amounted to Euro5.3

billion.

Source: Business Times; Kuala Lumpur

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