Coatings World - March 2014

Sabrina Feng, China Correspondent

Axalta Coating Systems recently broke ground to ex- pand its manufacturing capacity for coatings with the construction of a new $50 million eco-friendly water-borne facility in the Jiading district of Shanghai. Expected to begin production in 2015, Axalta’s Shanghai waterborne facility will manufacture and supply up to 25,000 metric tons of its waterborne products.

“There is growing demand for eco-friendly coatings in
response to local and global demands for a cleaner auto in-
dustry,” said Sobers Sethi, vice president of the Asia Pacific
region of Axalta Coating Systems. “Therefore, we are invest-
ing heavily in waterborne coatings to meet the future demand
for sustainable coating solutions. This is especially relevant
in China, where the government has called for automobile
producers to adopt more environmentally friendly solu-
tions. Thus, automotive producers seeking to answer grow-
ing demand for environmentally responsible products are the
primary market for our waterborne coatings in China.”
China is an important region for Axalta and the compa-
ny has a number of manufacturing facilities in the country.
“Our worldwide revenues in 2012 were $4.3 billion, and
China has been and will continue to be one of our key mar-
kets,” said Sethi. “In demonstration of China’s importance to
Axalta globally, Shanghai is home to our regional Asia-Pacific
R&D Center and Global Color Lab that serves our markets
both in the region and the world. Shanghai is also the loca-
tion of an important manufacturing center, which includes
the location of our new Shanghai Waterborne Facility as well
as both our China and Asia-Pacific regional headquarters. We
also have a major manufacturing facility in Changchun that
mainly serves our customers in the north.”

Axalta has a strong presence in most countries in Asia through its own teams and distributors. Its Refinish business is regional and Axalta has leading positions in this