Chemical company BASF strives for bigger market share in China

FRANKFURT, April 27 (Xinhua) -- German chemical company BASF said on Thursday that it would redouble efforts to strengthen its presence in China.

Speaking at a meeting in Mannheim, BASF CEO Martin Brudermueller said that Chinese transactions accounted for less than 15 percent of the company's sales in 2022, despite the fact that around half of the global sales in this segment were made in China.

With an eye to a stagnating European market, BASF is investigating in a 10 billion-U.S. dollar Verbund project in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.

Brudermueller's disappointment was palpable when he talked about the European market. "Our home market is increasingly worrying us," he said, "Profitability is nowhere near what it should be."

According to the results released by the company on Thursday, at almost 20 billion euros (22 billion dollars), its revenue was 13.4 percent lower than in the first quarter of the previous year, and the adjusted operating profit (EBIT) fell by almost a third to 1.9 billion euros. (1 euro = 1.1 U.S. dollar)