The company continues to enhance its substantial position in Asia by sales expansion, marketing, manufacturing and research capabilities in the region. Asia's contribution to company profit expects to go up from 30% to more than 50% by 2010. China is responsible for 30 -35% of earnings growth. Celanese is one of a very few companies operating a large-scale chemical plant independently. The company will continue to expand its sales in China, adding new capacity in the chemical business and in performance plastics. The company's newly integrated chemical complex in Nanjing, China, will entail an investment of $300-350 million. The acetic acid and emulsions units at the complex are now under operation and commercial sales are underway. The company expects to generate $600 800 million of revenue and $120-150 million of EBITDA profit annually. Moreover, the company is aligned with China's National Tobacco Company for the production of acetate filter tow for cigarettes. China is one of the few regions in the world exhibiting any real growth (3.0 3.5% per year) in this segment. Although acetic acid, VAM, and acetate tow are all commodity products, Celanese will operate in an environment removed from the many competitive challenges present outside China.
