New China plant for Protex

French speciality chemicals firm Protex International has completed and made its first shipments from a new manufacturing operation for its Guangdong Prox-Chem Speciality Chemicals subsidiary. This makes Protex’s full range of additives for water-based paints, inks and dyeing aids and textile finishing products for clothing, furnishings and technical textiles textile processing.

The facility, at the Sihui Industrial Park about 50 km from Guangzhou, has an area of 20,000 m2 and about 20,000 tonnes/year of capacity. Construction and equipment installation took 36 months, due to the pandemic. A workshop with units able to use hazardous products, and a Class A storage facility and store are now operational.

Guangdong Prox-Chem had been in operation at Gaoyao since the early 1980s but the area around it had become increasingly residential and the authorities wanted “to lead chemical manufacturers to a specific platform,” Protex said. It therefore “decided to turn this situation into an opportunity for the future. Some staff from Gaoyao have now moved over.

“For the group, which is already well established in South-East Asia, where nearly 30% of its business is carried out, this project aims to acquire in China a new industrial base with latest generation equipment, guarantee of quality and competitiveness and to provide locally its customers of the Asian zone,” Protex added.