Netherlands-based Akzo Nobel is to spend €250 million building two chemical plants in China.

The company has already reserved a 50 hectare plot within the Ningbo Chemical Industry Zone where it will establish the two new facilities—for the manufacture of ethylene amines and chelating agents—and construction work will begin once the relevant approval has been obtained from the Chinese authorities. The chelating agents plant is expected to go into operation in 2009, followed by the ethylene amines factory in early 2010.