Japan's Asahi Kasei enhanced its plans for making high-performance resin in China and the company will produce resin for photovoltaic panels and lithium batteries in the country.

Asahi Kasei will cooperate with China National Chemical Corporation, which is also known as ChemChina, to jointly build a factory in China aiming at the growing demand for car batteries. Each party will reportedly make a 50% investment and the total business costs were estimated at about JPY30 billion. By cooperating with a large Chinese enterprise, Asahi Kasei will be able to decentralize business risks while expanding customers in China.

Asahi Kasei and ChemChina plan to make high-performance resin named modified polyphenylene ether resin. It features high insulation, impact resistance, and heat resistance. It can be used for wiring of photovoltaic panels and lithium batteries, automobile parts, and all-in-one machines.

Asahi Kasei reportedly ranks second in the global modified polyphenylene ether resin sector by market share, following the large petrochemical enterprise SABIC. At present, Asahi Kasei has an annual output of about 60,000 tons in Singapore and its Chinese plant is designed to have about 70% to 80% capacity compared with the Singapore one.