Unilever launches new plant in SW China

Consumer goods giant Unilever launched its third manufacturing plant in China in Pengshan County in southwest China's Sichuan Province on Wednesday.

The production base covers an area of about 27 hectares. Unilever will invest about 300 million yuan (48.7 million U.S. dollars) for a detergent production facility, the first phase in the company's Sichuan production base, which is expected to be completed in early 2015 with an annual production capacity of more than 200,000 tonnes.

At the project's launch ceremony, Unilever chief executive officer Paul Polman said the company had high hopes for Sichuan.

The Sichuan plant will supply products to other countries in addition to catering to the Chinese market, said Polman, adding that the plant will become one of the company's largest production bases in the world.

Emerging markets currently account for 57 percent of Unilever's total business and China is a key market, he said.

Unilever established its first production base in China in Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province, in 2002. The plant has already become Unilever's largest production base in the world with an output value of 16 billion yuan in 2012.

Unilever launched an industrial park project in the northern port city of Tianjin in March 2012.