Alcoa helps fuel growth in Tianjin

Editor's Note: The Asia Society is holding its 18th Asian Corporate Conference at Tianjin Binhai New Area this week with the theme of sustainability and global business development. As a result, wide domestic and global attention is set on Tianjin. The Binhai New Area of Tianjin Municipality is set to be another growth engine for China, following Shenzhen and Shanghai's Pudong. Alcoa's Asia-Pacific president Chen Jinya and China Daily reporter Wang Yu talk about how the aluminum giant is positioning Tianjin and greater Bohai Bay area and how the firm manages to be sustainable while tapping business chances here.

Q: How important are Tianjin and the Bohai area to Alcoa's overall Chinese business strategy?

A: Alcoa believes strongly that China represents the most growth opportunities for the aluminum industry in the near future. Tianjin and the Bohai area will play an important role in Chinese economic growth and will provide great opportunities to both national and multinational corporations such as Alcoa.

Tianjin Binhai New Area has its unique advantages to seek greater growth. Many reform projects have already been confirmed by the government and some important policies related to reform and opening up have priority in national development agenda. Also, the traffic advantage of Binhai New Area makes it more popular. The Beijing-Tianjin intercity influence will drive the Bohai area to be the dynamic core for north China's development. For foreign enterprises, this area provides great potential and opportunities to develop their business too.

Q: As a global aluminum leader, how will Alcoa's development in China help fuel the economic growth of the Bohai area?

A: Alcoa has been operating in China since 1993, and has invested more than $700 million in creating 13 local operations.

Alcoa's single-largest investment in China is in this area, in Qinhuangdao, with a total investment of over $300 million. We are installing a brand new lithographic sheet manufacturing line in the area. It is believed that the newly installed line will run at the highest speed of all global lithographic lines currently in operation. Today, China imports almost all its needs for lithographic sheeting from abroad. When the line is fully operational, it will help China replace most of its overseas imports of litho sheets.

Q: How has Alcoa managed to maintain a sustainable business development pattern?

A: The most crucial factor within the industry that makes sustainable growth and environmentally friendly development feasible is paradigm shift. We must change our concept in developing and growing the aluminum industry. China needs a great amount of aluminum and the industry must grow with lower emission and lower energy consumption.

At Alcoa, sustainability is one of its core values. It isn't a separate department somewhere in the company, rather it is part of everything Alcoa does. The environment and energy will be considered first whenever a project is undertaken or a plant is operated. Alcoa has many successful experiences in environmental protection and energy saving. One of the contributions Alcoa made to the industry is making many of those technologies available to its partners. Alcoa is willing and ready to share the knowledge with its Chinese partners.

Q: Facing internationalization, how can Chinese companies become truly global? What are foreign companies coming to China doing to stay competitive?

A: There is a good balance between Chinese companies going outside China to grow, and multinationals coming to China to grow. That is cooperation. We believe the new cooperative relationship between multinational corporations and Chinese companies in this field will be widely created in the coming years.

We stand committed to helping - not only on an investment front, but also in technology and best-practice sharing in order to continue the process . The investment Chalco and Alcoa recently made in Rio Tinto is clearly a good model for China investment outside the country from both a financial and environmental perspective. Alcoa's relationship with Chalco is a long-term strategic cooperation. With the increasing importance of China, the ambition of Chalco is to go global and the desire of Alcoa is to go local in China. It will certainly bring a win-win situation to Chalco and Alcoa. Another example is Chalco's visit to Alcoa's Western Australia facilities to learn Alcoa practices recently. There in Western Australia we toured our facilities and shared knowledge and best practices with our partners in areas of emission control as well as learning about new technologies such as our new carbon-capture technology.Alcoa is here and willing to help where needed.

(China Daily 05/30/2008 page23)