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Switzerland’s Givaudan smells success in China

Swiss fragrance producer Givaudan said Friday it has begun work on a new production site in China, where the firm sees strong growth potential.

Published: 21 October 2017 16:07 CEST

Switzerland’s Givaudan smells success in China

Photo: tomert/Depositphotos

The Geneva-based group said it was investing 100 million Swiss francs (86 million euros) in the production facility at Changzhou, northwest of Shanghai, in what would be its largest investment in China to date.

The new site, joining others notably a manufacturing facility in Nantong, across the Yangtze River from Shanghai and set to open by 2020, will produce perfume fragrances as well as aromas used in oral hygiene products.

“With this investment in a market undergoing strong growth we are taking another step towards achieving our strategic ambitions through to 2020,” said chief executive Gilles Andrier.

Givaudan, which supplies prestige names in perfumes including Christian Dior and Prada, sees Asia as pivotal to its growth strategy.

However, it has not entirely escaped the downturn of recent years and in 2015 trimmed its growth target to five percent per year through 2020.

Even so it is setting great store by rising consumer purchasing power in China and India.

Away from China, Givaudan two years ago opened a perfumery school campus in Singapore, its first such facility outside its legendary French site at Argenteuil outside Paris.

Earlier this year the company began work on a new fragrance encapsulation centre in Singapore, where it first established an office in 1992.

The new facility is due to open its doors next year.

READ ALSO: Chinese firm takes over Swiss pesticide giant Syngenta

China derides Copenhagen democracy meet as 'political farce'

Demonstrators gathered outside the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday. Photo: Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix

The Copenhagen Democracy Summit was held Monday and Tuesday in the Danish capital and organised by the Alliance of Democracies, an organisation targeted by Beijing sanctions in March and founded by former NATO boss Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

In addition to Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen and Hong Kong democracy activist Nathan Law, Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod also participated in the forum by video link, which Beijing said violated “the one-China principle.”

“This summit is a political farce,” the Chinese embassy in Denmark wrote in a statement published on Tuesday. “Inviting those who advocate Taiwan and Hong Kong ‘independence’ to the meeting violates the one-China principle and interferes in China’s internal affairs,” it said.

“Some hypocritical western politicians are good at meddling in other countries’ internal affairs and creating divisions and confrontation in the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’. They are bound to fail,” it added.

At the conference on Monday, Kofod said it was “deplorable” that Beijing had imposed sanctions on 10 European individuals and organisations in response to EU sanctions on Xinjiang officials over their actions against the Uyghur Muslim minority.

Like most countries, Denmark applies the one-China principle — under which Beijing bars other countries from having simultaneous diplomatic relations with Taipei — though it does maintain relations with Taiwan.

Cut off politically from the rest of China since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the territory is self-governing but is not recognised by
the United Nations.

Beijing considers Taiwan a rebel province that will one day return under its control, by force if necessary.

China’s sabre-rattling has increased considerably over the past year, with fighter jets and nuclear-capable bombers breaching Taiwan’s air defence zone on a near-daily basis.

“Our government is fully aware of the threats to regional security, and is actively enhancing our national defence capabilities to protect our
democracy,” Tsai told the conference in a video address on Monday. US President Joe Biden is expected to present his China strategy soon, as
calls mount for him to publicly commit to defending Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese attack.

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