Toray Industries, Inc., announced that it has decided to establish a new company in Foshan, China, that will engage in production and sales of water treatment membrane products including reverse osmosis (RO), nanofiltration (NF), ultrafiltration (UF), microfiltration (MF) and membrane bioreactor (MBR) solutions. The new company will be named Toray Membrane (Foshan) Co., Ltd. (TMFC), and Toray is moving forward with land acquisition, construction and other activities to prepare for its establishment.
Foshan is also the site where construction of the premises of Toray Polytech (Foshan) Co., Ltd. (TPF) is already underway. This company that will engage in production and sales for the high-performance polypropylene spunbond (“PP spunbond) business. TMFC will be located adjacent to the TPF premises, ensuring an efficient operating structure by sharing management and systems infrastructure.
Demand for water treatment membranes has been rapidly expanding in China in recent years. To date, in addition to promoting the use of household water purifiers, Toray has contributed to improving the water environment and solving water scarcity issues in China by providing various kinds of water treatment membranes for waterworks and industrial use, desalination plants, and wastewater treatment and recycling.
Guangdong Province is moving to strengthen industry-academia partnerships and is systematically promoting research and development in advanced technologies. Foshan City is located in the center of the Guangdong Province Pearl River Delta economic zone and has a long track record of attracting Japanese companies of all sizes to engage in business partnerships in the region.
Toray already has water treatment membrane production and sales companies in operation in Beijing and Yancheng. The establishment of a new base in Foshan will enable Toray to respond nimbly to the rapidly expanding water treatment membrane market in China, where environmental improvement efforts are being energetically promoted. In relation to the establishment of TMFC, we held a signing ceremony on April 7 at Toray’s Nagoya Plant (location: Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture), on the occasion of the visit to Japan of Ma Xingrui, Governor of Guangdong Province.
Under the Green Innovation Business Expansion (GR) Project that is part of the Medium-Term Management Program, Project AP-G 2019, Toray aims to contribute to the resolution of environmental, resource, and energy issues. The water treatment business is a core part of these efforts and, by engaging in this sector at the global level as one of the world’s leading general water treatment membrane manufacturers, Toray will continue to work hard to deliver solutions to the world’s water resource-related issues.