Katia Deng/ Shanghai Daily news

The Shanghai Chemical Industry Park plans to achieve 50 billion yuan (US$6.48 billion) in revenue this year, up 40 percent from a year earlier, as more chemical giants consider building new projects and making a huge investment in the park.

The park’s revenue in the first two months of this year hit 7.1 billion yuan.

The chemical industry park, in the city’s southwest, is home to 68 companies, including Bayer AG, BASF AG, Degussa and BP Chemicals, whose products cover different aspects of the petrochemical industry.

The companies are developing more new projects with five projects beginning operation in 2005 and another 14 last year.

US-based Dow Chemical has selected the park as the site for its 150,000-ton-a-year glycerine-to-epichlorohydrin plant and 100,000-ton-a-year liquid epoxy resins plant. They are slated to start up in 2009 or 2010.

Bayer opened a plant with an annual output of 30,000 tons of HDI, a raw materials coating, on March 15. It was the company’s fourth HDI plants in the world. BASF has built a polycarbonate plant, its third project in the park.