UNILIVER, the Anglo-Dutch consumer products group, sees a large
opportunity for its goods in mainland China. That country's huge
population of 1.2 billion, which up until now has been starved of
Western style consumer goods, and fast growing economy provide an
attractive background for investment.
Other companies such as confectioners Cadbury have established joint
ventures in China and yesterday was the turn of Unilever, which proposes
to form a joint venture with the Shanghai Toothpaste Factory for the
production and marketing of oral care products.
It already has five joint ventures including an ice cream factory for
Walls and a fabric detergents company. It is keen to establish trading
bases in China in its core business areas.
Unilever will have a 60% share in this latest venture which will
employ 1350 people.
Shanghai Toothpaste Factory is China's largest toothpaste manufacturer
producing more than 550 million tubes a year.
With about 5% of world production, it is also the largest manufacturer
in Asia. Its Maxam brand is well known in China and is also sold
elsewhere in Asia and Africa.
The Chinese business will be modernised in terms of technology and
marketing and Unilever's existing toothpase brands such as Signal and
Close-Up will be introduced into China.
There are thought to be significant growth opportunities for the joint
venture business as oral hygiene awareness increases prompted by
educational programmes aimed at the predominantly young population and
the urban areas become increasingly affluent.
Unilever has a long-standing presence in China's neighbouring
countries which forms a strong base for further expansion.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article