BASF, a leading world supplier of personal care ingredients, including UV filters, plans to set up a new line at its Kaohsiung plant to double its global production capacity.
The German chemical company currently produces UV filters called Uvinul A Plus only at its site in Ludwigshafen, Germany.
“We expect demand for high-performance and safe UV filters to continue growing worldwide due to consumer awareness about the importance of UV protection for skin health,” care chemicals president Ralph Schweens said, adding that BASF aims to take advantage of that growth.
The announcement comes one week after BASF launched a footwear innovation center in Changhua County, in addition to three other global footwear development centers in Italy, the US and Thailand, as Taiwan gains importance as a regional manufacturing hub.
Rajan Venkatesh, senior vice president of care chemicals in the Asia-Pacific, said the new production line reflects growing demand for advanced UV filters and underlines BASF’s commitment to the region.
“The capacity expansion, coupled with our existing facility in Ludwigshafen, will increase supply security for our customers,” Venkatesh said.
Expanded capacities would be available from the middle of 2022, the company said.
Uvinul A Plus is one of the few photostable UVA filters available on the market that reliably filters the sun’s dangerous UVA rays and provides outstanding protection from free radicals and skin damage, BASF said.
The oil-soluble granule offers excellent formulation flexibility, is free of preservatives and highly efficient at a low concentration, making it ideal for long-lasting sun care and skin care products with anti-aging efficacy, it said.
As the first company to commercialize UV filters globally, BASF not only possesses expertise in production, but also offers solutions such as sunscreen formulations to enhance everyday skin care regimens, care chemicals vice president Srikanth Vaduvur said.
The Uvinul A Plus investment would augment the company’s UV filters portfolio in the region, Vaduvur said, adding that the Kaohsiung site has maintained high standards in producing other products.
The BASF care chemicals division offers a broad range of ingredients for personal care, home care, industrial and institutional cleaning, and technical applications.
The division’s product portfolio includes surfactants, emulsifiers, polymers, emollients, chelating agents, cosmetic active ingredients and UV filters.
The footwear innovation center focuses on high-performance materials and the latest footwear automation technologies to foster codevelopment of innovative solutions for the footwear industry, communications officials said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six