Japan's Toray to form joint venture in China to produce water treatment membranes

Japan's Toray Industries Inc. announced on November 25 that it will set up a joint venture in China with a local large-scale water treatment enterprise, China National BlueStar (Group) Company, to establish a factory that produces water treatment membranes used for purifying wastewater discharged from factories.

Toray's total investment is estimated to be around 7.5 billion yen. Toray predicts that the growing global population will lead to an increasing shortage of water resources and demand for the kind of products among related industries is expected to rise.

Toray has the third-largest market share in the world for water treatment membranes. Jointly investing and building a factory in China will help them further expand their business scale.

It's learnt that the factory is expected to start operation in April 2010. The membranes can produce 3.5 million cubic meters of treated wastewater a day, equivalent to an amount discharged by 14 million people.

Water treatment membranes are a type of resin filter membrane perforated with nanometer-sized holes.

Source: People's Daily Online