Kesai Agrochem: Stepwise Strategies to Be a Giant     

Kesai Agrochem Co., Ltd. (Kesai Agrochem) is a designated pesticide production enterprise by the National Development and Reform Commission. It mainly engages in the research, production and sales of crop protection products.
   Kesai Agrochem (KSA) has developed rapidly since its foundation at the end of 2003 with the settlement of two production bases in Shandong province: Jinan Kesai Agrochem Co., Ltd. and Weifang Dehao Chemicals Co., Ltd.
   Shandong Kesai Eagrow Co., Ltd. also is a subsidiary of KSA and mainly exports qualified products to international market.
   Jinan Kesai Agrochem has developed more than 77 varieties of herbicides (EC, AS, SC, EW, WP). Its Jinan production plant is located in Jinan Hongteng Industry Park with capacity of around 20 000 tons a year and its main products are Acetochlor 500-990g/L EC and Butachlor 500-600g/L EC, Glyphosate 41% IPA, Paraquat 20% SL, Quizalofop-R-methyl 50-100g/L EC, Atrazine 500SC etc. Weifang production plant is launched in Port Chemical Industry Park in Binhai Economic Development Zone of Weifang city in March 2006 with an investment of RMB450 million. It covers an area of 186 667 square meters and mainly produces S-triazine and acetamide-group herbicides. All the technical and powder formulation projects in this base have been put into operation; At present, the pesticide technical capacity in its Weifang Base is 30 000 t/a and the formulation capacity is 10 000 t/a.
   Yin Xingbin, General Manager of KESAI EAGROW told CCR that 70% of the company's products are sold domestically and 30% are sold in the international market, mainly to Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin-America, East Europe and Middle East. "For Atrazine 97% TC, 90% WDG, 80% WP as well as 38% SC that get high public praise have ever higher export ratio, to be 40% at present. Its Acetochlor 990g/L EC won the biggest share in domestic market in the past year. The other popular one is ammonium glyphosate 88.8%, which has come into the sight of foreign distributors."
   Mr. Yin says that the crisis in the past year surely affected the selling price of its products, while its sales volume increased 20%-30% year on year, mainly from the sales growth of small finished package formulations, which drove a production expansion for the company by 30% -40%. Under this context, Kesai Agrochem got as much profit as it did before the crisis.
   He believes that small packages will go even far in the pesticide formulation market. At present, Kesai Agrochem has an ability of producing about 30 000 tons of small packaged pecticide formulation annually, and the company aims to become a giant that specializes in the export of formulations in small packages in the future.
   Kesai Agrochem draws up a plan for becoming a giant in crop-protection industry at the beginning of its foundation: in the first five to eight years the company will achieve a goal of selling RMB300 - 500 million annually for herbicides, and it is pleased to find that it already achieved the 2009 goal.  And in the second five years, it will realize a sales revenue of RMB500 million to RMB1.0 billion per year by expanding its business and entering into the fungicides and insecticides market. Then the company will find further development in pluralism by stepping into more agricultural sectors like seed, flower, fertilizer and modern farm businesses.