The Semperit Group announced that it has completed another expansion stage at the Semperflex site in Odry, Czech Republic. With an investment volume of EUR 27 million, the annual production capacity was increased to 100 million metres of industrial and hydraulic hoses, which are used in the construction and transport industries, in mines as well as in various agricultural machines.

BASF, which last year signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the Guangdong provincial government to establish a new "smart" Verbund site in Guangdong, said it has selected the city of Zhanjiang as the location of the proposed project.

China is looking to set up a specialised free trade zone (FTZ) for rubber-based value added exports in Sri Lanka by partnering with private sector rubber manufactures, exporters and planters including Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs). A high-powered Chinese delegation led by the Deputy Governor of China’s Hainan Province and former Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Shen Danyang and other Chinese State officials had discussions with Sri Lankan Plantation Industries Minister Navin Dissanayake and other top ministry officials at the ministry premises in Colombo on Friday (11 January 2019).

Natural rubber prices are expected to range from MYR 4 to MYR 5 per kilogram this year from an average of MYR 4.29 per kg last year. Natural rubber has consistently remained below MYR 4 per kg since October, said Hong Leong Investment Bank (HLIB) in its research note. The investment bank expects 2019 to show an uncertain and volatile movement of the price of natural rubber. This will be in line with the ethylene price velocity, the raw material for synthetic rubber in Asia.

Vietnam exported about 1.58 million tons of rubber in 2018 – worth USD 2.1 billion and up 14.5 percent in volume, but down 6.6 percent in value year-on-year, the General Department of Vietnam Customs reported. In December, the country earned USD 230 million from shipping 190,000 tons of rubber abroad, representing an increase of 12.7 percent but the value dropped 5.6 percent year-on-year. The price of rubber in the last month of 2018 increased as trade tensions between the US and China eased.

Reed Exhibitions, a division of Relx Group, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Mack Brooks Exhibitions. Financial details were not disclosed. The transaction is subject to customary regulatory consents and is expected to close during the first half of 2019.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) on Thursday (6 December 2018) assured full technical and financial assistance to Sialkot’s gloves industry in Pakistan’s Punjab Province. This was announced by Senior Representative of JICA in Pakistan, Yoshihisa Onoe, during a meeting with manufacturers and exporters at the Pakistan Gloves Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PGMEA) office.

The KraussMaffei Group announced that it has completed its listing on the Shanghai stock exchange on 28/29 December 2018. The listing occurred through the transfer of ChemChina’s stake in KraussMaffei to its majority owned subsidiary THY (Qingdao Tianhua Institute of Chemistry Engineering), which is listed on the Shanghai stock exchange. In addition, THY has taken over ChemChina’s production site in Sanming, China. New injection moulding machines for the Chinese market will be manufactured at this site in the future. Dr. Frank Stieler and Dr. Harald Nippel, CEO and CFO of KraussMaffei, will lead the new integrated mechanical engineering company. The combined business will operate under the brand KraussMaffei. KraussMaffei generates more than 80 % of the approximately EUR 1.5 billion revenue of the total entity.

Abu Dhabi Polymers Company (Borouge) has begun construction of its 5th polypropylene unit within the company's plant in the Ruwais region of the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi. Once the project comes on stream in the third quarter of 2021, it will boast a production capacity of 480,000 t/y, said a statement from Borouge, a joint venture between Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) and Borealis of Austria. This new plant will help boost its polypropylene capacity by more than 25 per cent to 2.24 million t/y and unlock new opportunities to boost the local economy, it added.

Top Gloves Corp Bhd, which said earlier this year (2018) it would be investing MYR 100 million to set up a new plant to produce vinyl gloves in Vietnam, announced it has incorporated a subsidiary there for the purpose of manufacturing gloves and other products. The subsidiary that was incorporated on 19 December 2018 as a one-member limited liability company has a charter capital of VND 136.70 billion (about MYR 24.42 million), Top Glove said in a stock exchange filing on 21 December 2018. The subsidiary is known as Top Glove Vietnam Company Ltd.