Unilever Plc, a leading global supplier of consumer goods, is targeting the vast West China market by setting up a manufacturing base in Sichuan province.

On Wednesday, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Unilever (Sichuan) manufacturing base was held in Pengshan county. "The new facility will be Unilever's third world-class green manufacturing base in China and it will become one of Unilever's biggest production facilities globally," said Unilever Chief Executive Officer Paul Polman in an interview with China Daily.

The other bases are in Hefei, Anhui province, and the coastal Tianjin municipality.

The base, in the Qinglong Development Zone of Pengshan, a county under the administration of Meishan city, covers 26.7 hectares.

The first phase of the project for producing laundry detergent involves an investment of nearly 300 million yuan ($49 million) with an estimated annual output of more than 200,000 tons. Completion is scheduled for 2015.

In 2002, Unilever set up a production base for household and personal care items in Hefei, which was its first step in expanding its footprint in China. The base is Unilever's biggest production facility globally, turning out 16 billion yuan in goods each year.

Polman said the industrial park in Hefei aims at the market in South and East China and the Tianjin site is mainly for the market in North China.

The Sichuan base, which is Unilever's first in West China, was chosen because of Sichuan's advantageous location, abundant labor force and high-quality raw materials, which help reduce labor costs, thus better serving the market in West China, he said.

Sichuan has become the "fourth pole" of China's rapid economic development after the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

According to the Regional Development Plan for the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Zone, approved by the State Council, the region will be built into an important economic center in West China by 2015.

It is meant to become one of the economically strongest regions of the nation by 2020.

"The development plan is in perfect harmony with Unilever's 10-year objectives in China." He said that nearly 60 percent of Unilever's turnover comes from emerging markets such as China, Indonesia, India and Nigeria.

"The rapid business growth of Unilever China has made China one of the top priority countries for us," he said.

In the first half of this year, Unilever achieved double-digit sales growth in China. The company's distribution network covers most of the Chinese mainland, according to Alan Jope, president of Unilever North Asia.

"The new production base in Sichuan will create jobs for locals and therefore reduce the number of children to be left behind by their farmer parents, who otherwise would have to seek jobs in faraway cities," said Li Jing, Party chief of Meishan.

huangzhiling@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/14/2013 page10)