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• New laboratories strengthen regional R&D capabilities in proximity to key customers;
• Focus on technologies with lower environmental impact.
At these state-of-the-art coatings and coating resins laboratories, the company’s R&D team is innovating to address regional automotive customers’ growing demands for high-performance, quality and flexible coatings solutions with a lower environmental impact.
“We anticipated early the growth potential of the automotive industry in Asia, as well as the build up of R&D capacities of our customers,” said Peter Fischer, Senior Vice President, Coatings Solutions, Asia Pacific, BASF. “One key enabler for future success is the globalization of our R&D landscape and to establish an organization to meet future market needs. That is what we did. We target to increase our R&D personnel in Asia Pacific, mostly in China.”
With high level of expertise and cutting-edge facilities, the new laboratories focus on R&D activities for coating formulations, resins, polymer synthesis, as well as coating applications for spray-coats and electro-deposition coatings. Latest coating application technologies also ensures that customer’s production line conditions can be simulated, creating superior values to customers.
In general, demand for sustainable and high-performance coatings that reduce volatile organic compounds in the automotive industry is on the rise. “We have built up significant R&D resources at the Innovation Campus in Shanghai, where many of our innovations are developed to benefit our customers. We will further invest and come up with new solutions that address growing demand of our customers for products that are sustainable, durable and esthetically pleasing,” added Rafael Bautista Mester, Head of R&D and Technology Management, Coatings Solutions Asia Pacific, BASF. “Bringing together our R&D talent, we are working on global and regional projects that focus on researching and developing new and improved products, application and alternative technologies.”
About BASF’s Coatings division
The Coatings division of BASF (basf-coatings.com) is a global expert in the development, production and marketing of innovative and sustainable automotive OEM and refinish coatings, industrial coatings and decorative paints. We create advanced performance solutions and drive performance, design and new applications to meet our partners’ needs all over the world. BASF shares skills, knowledge and resources of interdisciplinary and global teams for the benefit of customers by operating a collaborative network of sites in Europe, North America, South America and Asia Pacific. In 2015, the Coatings division achieved global sales of about €3.2 billion.
About BASF
At BASF (basf.com), we create chemistry for a sustainable future. We combine economic success with environmental protection and social responsibility. The approximately 112,000 employees in the BASF Group work on contributing to the success of our customers in nearly all sectors and almost every country in the world. Our portfolio is organized into five segments: Chemicals, Performance Products, Functional Materials & Solutions, Agricultural Solutions and Oil & Gas. BASF generated sales of more than €70 billion in 2015. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchanges in Frankfurt (BAS), London (BFA) and Zurich (AN).
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joerg.zumkley[.]basf.com 
