China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), the country's largest oil refiner and chemical products manufacturer, Tuesday announced the establishment of a company that will sell chemicals in Beijing Tuesday.

Despite an annual ethylene capacity of 4.25 million tons in 2004, more than 70 percent of the total capacity of China and the sixth most in the world, Sinopec has not have a unified sales network for its chemical products.

As a result, the advantage in Sinopec's chemicals production capacity was not materialized as an the advantage in the market, which greatly restricted the structure promotion of chemicals and research and development for new chemical products, said Zhang Jianhua, Senior Vice President of Sinopec.   

According to Zhang, under the sales company, Sinopec will establish three regional sales branches in Beijing in north China, east China's Shanghai Municipality and Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province.

"It will be helpful for Sinopec to form a unified sales network for its chemical products," said Zhang.

The new sales company will begin its trial operation in July. 

(Xinhua News Agency May 11, 2005)