Underlining its commitment to the growing Asian market, which it expects to dominate sales in the near future, DSM Engineering Plastics (Sittard / The Netherlands; www.dsmep.com) on 15 February 2012 announced that it has moved its global headquarters to Singapore. A number of key functions have been transferred, DSM said.

Commenting on the move, Roelof Westerbeek, president of DSM Engineering Plastics, said, “This is a significant step as it puts us right at the heart of the fast-growing Asian marketplace.” The company operates manufacturing plants in The Netherlands, Belgium and Russia in Europe, as well as the US. In Asia, DSM Engineering Plastics has production facilities in China, Japan, India and Taiwan.

The Dutch group is the latest in a number of European plastics players to relocate their division headquarters to Asia. At the end of last year, BASF (Ludwigshafen / Germany; www.basf.com) officially moved its global Dispersions & Pigments division HQ to Hong Kong – see Plasteurope.com of 16.11.2011. Another leading German plastics player, Bayer MaterialScience (Leverkusen; www.bayerbms.com) will complete the relocation of its PC headquarters to Shanghai / China by 2016 – see Plasteurope.com of 10.12.2010.