Germany-based supplier of specialty chemicals and nutritional ingredients Cognis has reported a 1.7% increase in net sales for the first quarter to reach €890 million, driven by growth across all of its strategic business units.

Process Chemicals’ sales of €64 million were flat with the first quarter of 2006, although sales volumes in both the Textile and the Leather Technology businesses improved slightly as a result of strong growth in the Asia-Pacific region following the addition of new capacity in China in 2006.