Evonik Announces to be the Diamond Sponsor of Boao Forum Asia Annual conference 2008

January 24, 2008

Evonik today announced that it will support Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) Annual Conference 2008 as diamond sponsor this year. Dr. Klaus Engel, member of the Management Board of Evonik Industries, and Chairman of the Board of Management of Evonik Degussa GmbH, will attend the conference as the chief representative of Evonik Industries on April 11-13 in Boao, China.

“The theme this time has been set as “Green Asia: Moving Towards Win-Win Through Changes”. As an international creative industrial group, sustainable development is always an integrated part of all of Evonik’s business processes. In line with the conference theme, we are happy to help provide such a most prestigious and premier forum for leaders in government, business and academia in Asia and other continents to share and learn in this area,” said Dr. Engel.  

Dr. Yu Dahai, President Evonik Greater China Region (former Degussa (China) Co., Ltd.) also commented, "Asia, especially China has become the region with the most rapid growth around the world. Evonik’s development in China in the recent years has also reflected the significant growth of China economy. If it was not benefited from the growth of local economy, we would have never been able to have 18 companies nation-wide here in such a short time. With the belief in the great potential and bright future of Asia, and especially China, we hope this year's BFA could help further dialogue on the way to sustainable economic growth."  

Evonik has been producing specialty chemical products in China since the early 1990’s, with wide-ranging trading relations already in place prior to this. In 2004, a R&D center was opened in Shanghai, which was double expanded by mid-2007 with the total investment of more than 20 million euros. Currently, Evonik is constructing an integrated production facility for methyl methacrylate (MMA) and methacrylic specialties at its multi user site at the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park, with the investment volume for the entire plant including all preliminary stages being approximately 250 million euros, which makes it the largest MMA product site in Asia and the second largest single investment of Evonik´s Chemicals Business Area. In the past five years, the sales of Evonik in China have tripled and the employees have increased from 1,000 to 4,000.  Evonik regards China as one of the driving forces of the global economy, and we consequently intend to increase our business in Greater China to around 1 billion euros in 2009.   
   

Company information
Evonik Industries is the creative industrial group from Germany which operates in three business areas: Chemicals, Energy and Real Estate. Evonik is a global leader in specialty chemicals, an expert in power generation from hard coal and renewable energies, and one of the largest private residential real estate companies in Germany. Our strengths are creativity, specialization, continuous self-renewal, and reliability. Evonik is active in over 100 countries around the world. In its fiscal year 2006 more than 43,000 employees generated sales of about Euro 14.8 billion and an operating profit (EBIT) of over Euro 1.2 billion.

Disclaimer
In so far as forecasts or expectations are expressed in this press release or where our statements concern the future, these forecasts, expectations or statements may involve known or unknown risks and uncertainties. Actual results or developments may vary, depending on changes in the operating environment. Neither Evonik Industries AG nor its group companies assume an obligation to update the forecasts, expectations or statements contained in this release.