DuPont opening new R&D centers to spur growth
Wed May 13, 2005 03:09 AM ET
 NEW YORK - DuPont Co. , the No. 2 U.S. chemicals maker, on Tuesday said its plan to aggressively pursue growth in new and emerging markets would include opening new R&D facilities, with India and Russia next.
Dupont's chief science & technlogy officer, Thomas Connelly, said Asia was a key focus, with the company opening new laboratories to serve new markets and develop new products, more of which were related to biology and electronics.
DuPont recently built a research and development facility near Shanghai in China that employs about 100 scientists and engineers with room for far more, and is opening a smaller facility with a "handful of staff" in South Korea.
"We will continue this trend. The next on our list will be India and Russia and you will see that happening very shortly," Connelly told a Merrill Lynch chemicals conference.
"We need to go to where the growth is."
Connelly said DuPont, based in Wilmington, Delaware, was putting more of its technology effort on growth which was translating into more products being delivered to the marketplace, faster development and more patents.
"I expect to see us increasing our patent filing by near double digit rates over the next few years," he said.
Sales from new products were expected to increase to 33 percent of total sales in 2005, aided by growth in emerging markets.
Connelly said about 60 percent of these new product sales cannibalized or replaced other DuPont sales last year, which totaled $27.3 billion, but this divide was expected to decline to about 50 percent.
DuPont shares were 0.19 percent lower at $54.04 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, off a year high of $54.90 earlier in the month. Reuters Source:
Reuters
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