2001年07月12日

Chinese Petchem Makers in All-Out Staff Cuts

【カテゴリー】：経営 【関連企業・団体】：なし

China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) could come as early as the end of this year. Accompanying the mainland's entry will be a cut in chemical import tariffs from the current average of 14.74% down to 6.9% by 2005. Major multinational petrochemical manufacturers, meanwhile, are slated to bring on stream a number of world-scale complexes over the next five years. Moreover, resin logistics and distribution is also set to become smoother once China has joined the WTO. Recognizing these factors, China's domestic petrochemical concerns are focusing on improving their international competitiveness, and one of the major challenges they face is reducing manpower levels. Beijing Yanhua Petrochemical Co. (formerly Beijing Yanshin Petrochemical Co.), for example has started an aggressive program to lay off excess employees. By the end of this year, the company will rid itself of 2,089 of its current 44,189 staff. By 2005, a further 7307 will lose their jobs. Staffing levels at Beijing Yanhua's parent company Sinopec, meanwhile, number 510,000 (including those at Beijing Yanhua). By the end of this year, Sinopec will lay off 27,000 staff, and by 2005, a total of 100,000 are slated to lose their jobs. Such large-scale restructuring will only be achieved through significant redundancy payments. Workers stand to receive up to US$520 per year of service. Some of the funds raised by Sinopec from its listings on the New York Stock Exchange, domestic stock exchanges, and elsewhere, will be used for this purpose. Another challenge facing China's domestic petrochemical producers is small, uncompetitive production scales. Beijing Yanhua's PS production capacity, for example, is only 50,000 tonnes/yr, while that for acrylic is 20,000 tonnes/yr.