January 17, 2013

"The focus is on innovation"

LANXESS Rubber Day India is to take place in Mumbai on January 21, 2013. As the newly appointed head of the High Performance Elastomers business unit, Jan-Paul de Vries will take part in a panel discussion there. We spoke to him beforehand.

LANXESS: Congratulations! Since January 1, you have been heading up the new High Performance Elastomers business unit. What are its key priorities?

De Vries: We are now focusing exclusively on the high-performance rubbers CR, NBR, HNBR and EVM. The new HPE business unit sees itself as THE supplier of a wide range of high-performance elastomers for specialty applications. That's why we are now really pushing the expansion of our premium products. The focus is now more on innovation in products and applications than it was in the past. By separating off the EPDM business we can now concentrate better on the global growth of these high-performance elastomers.

LANXESS: Rubber Day India is your first public appearance in your new function. What will be your role there?

De Vries: I have agreed to be a member of the panel for a discussion on "The Future of Mobility in India". This will entail a general overview of the Indian automotive industry and naturally new trends and innovations in this area. Another subject to be debated will be high-performance materials for the mobility of the future - this is a field in which, with its special-purpose and high-performance rubber grades, the HPE business unit naturally has much to offer. Finally, the discussion will turn to the rubber industry in general and, as India is a large market for us, I should be able to contribute something to the discussion here too.

LANXESS: Will India become an even more interesting market for you in the future?

De Vries: As I already said, we see the HPE business unit as a platform for special-purpose and high-performance rubber grades with a highly diversified product portfolio. These products are particularly in demand in a growth country like India.

Take, for example, the Indian automotive market, which is served by our high-performance rubbers. India's car market is currently sixth in the world and the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) predicts for the current fiscal year 2012-2013 that the sales volume of cars will rise by between 11 and 13 percent.

There are around 40 million private cars in India - there is enormous growth potential here. All the major car manufacturers such as General Motors, Volkswagen, Skoda and Mercedes are represented in India. These are supplemented by Indian brands such as Mahindra, and Tata Motors, which is also sending representatives to Rubber Day India. We are looking forward to nurturing existing contacts and acquiring new ones.

LANXESS: Can you envisage interesting growth projects in India outside of the automotive industry?

Our specialties are well positioned to cover a wide range of applications in India. These include in particular the cable market and adhesive and protective film applications, but also many possibilities in the oil industry, where some highly attractive applications present themselves for our products - from seals to stators.

distributed by