China National Chemicals Import & Export Corp, the nation's largest foreign trading company, has changed its name to Sinochem Corp to reflect its transformation from a traditional trader into a company with a broader integrated business scope.

In the past, Sinochem mainly engaged in the international and domestic trade of petroleum, fertilizers, rubber, plastics and chemicals, in addition to industrial investment.

But after the Asian financial crisis that shrunk the import and export markets for Sinochem in the late 1990s, it started expanding its presence in both upstream and downstream businesses to form a complete value chain covering manufacturing and marketing. It targeted petroleum, fertilizers and chemicals as its core businesses.

On the petroleum front, the company is one of the four largest oil importers and the largest refined oil importer in China.

At present, the company imports and transports 30 million tons of crude oil annually.

Meanwhile, Sinochem is actively expanding its oil reserves overseas.

Sinochem has acquired Atlantis-- a subsidiary owned by Norwegian company Petroleum Geo-services -- and related oil and gas exploration projects. Atlantis owns royalty interests in oil and gas fields in Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Tunisia.

Sinochem is also working on acquiring existing oil reserves in South America, said Liu Shude, president of the company, without elaborating.

It is the largest phosphate compound fertilizer producer in China. It has built up an annual production capacity of 2.5 million tons of phosphate with facilities at home and in the United States.

Sinochem has also established an agriculture material service network that covers 14 provinces.

As for chemicals, it is looking at building a chemical logistics industrial zone and research center in the Yangtze River Delta, to cash in on the rapidly increasing demand for chemicals in the area.

"The traditional trading company cannot survive in the global market," said Liu.

"We will continue to complete our value chain in core businesses and become a backbone to push the economic development of China.

"And the name change just reflects our transformation to go beyond import and export trade to become an integrated business."

(China Daily November 7, 2003)