Air Products Poised For Further Growth In Malaysia

PETALING JAYA (Malaysia), Feb 29 (Bernama) -- Air Products and Chemicals Inc., a Fortune 500 leading global supplier of industrial/specialty gases, eyes a strong foothold in Malaysia by growing its business here in years to come, managing director of South East Asia Jeff Chen said. He said the initiative, undertaken by its Malaysian unit Air Products Malaysia Sdn Bhd, is in tandem with the various opportunities in the government's National Key Economic Areas (NKEA) and Economic Transformation Programme (ETP). "The initiatives which the government are introducing through the ETP and NKEA are mainly aimed at boosting the manufacturing sector in the country. "In that case, being a manufacturing sector's support segment, the industrial gases industry as a whole and Air Products specifically have the chance to grow on a big scale," Chen said in a media briefing here Wednesday. The parent, which is a public listed entity on the New York Stock Exchange, made its presence in Malaysia in 1974, and in 1980 it established its first oxygen plant in Malaysia. Chen said currently, Air Products Malaysia owns and operates 13 manufacturing and sales locations with 270 employees, thus occupying the number two position in the Malaysian industrial/specialty gases business segment. Moving forward, he said the company is now building new plants in Kulim and Seremban as well as constructing a 12-13 kilometre pipeline to transport nitrogen/oxygen from its Perai plant to Bukit Minyak, Penang. "The Kulim plant will be mainly for electronic parts and the plant in Seremban will be for glass manufacturing. "Currently we have more than 2,000 customers in Malaysia across all industries and sizes. "We remain confident, remain attractive to customers, and we believe that we can grow in Malaysia," Chen said. -- BERNAMA