BASF readies bold moves in China again

big and systematic company, but prone to bold moves, BASF didn’t announce just one multibillion-dollar investment in China in the past six months—it revealed two. The German company announced in July that it would invest $10 billion in Zhanjiang in the southern province of Guangdong. Then in October it unveiled plans to nearly double the size of a giant facility in Nanjing that it has operated since 2005 with the state-owned Chinese firm Sinopec. For any company, an investment of more than $1 billion at a single site is major news. Build the project far away from home, and the news is even more noticeable. Assuming they are ultimately approved by BASF’s board, these two projects will be among the largest BASF has ever undertaken.