Danish company speaks at Summer Davos on Chinese market potential

Novozymes of Denmark, the world's largest industrial enzymes maker, said the company sees more business opportunities through innovation in the fields of household care, agriculture and bioenergy, all of which are expected to deliver a strong growth in China.

Sara Dai, president of Novozymes's Asia Pacific, said the Danish company will continue to use 14 percent of its global revenue for research and development every year to seek more growth and provide better products.

"I think we have a competitive edge in our technologies that can be widely used in industries such as household care, grain processing, food nutrition, textile, waste water treatment, bio-agriculture and bio-energy," she said. "It is also in line with the Chinese government's initiative to drive local economy by innovation."

She made the remarks on Monday at the Summer Davos in the northern port city of Tianjin, a three-day economic forum, also known as the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champion.

The Copenhagen-based company has a research center in Beijing and a biotechnology laboratory in Tianjin, as well as production sites in Tianjin, Jiangsu and Liaoning.

Novozymes finds enzymes in nature and optimizes them for use in industry, where enzymes replaces chemicals and accelerate production processes, which helps customers save energy and generate less waste.

"Currently the Chinese market has become our most important business growth engine, so we will continue our investment here, especially in regional innovation and talent development," Dai said.

"We have built innovation models and teams applicable to business development in China, covering areas of procedure, organization, logistics and capacity building."

In terms of talents development, Dai focused on realizing employees' potential. Their talent development and pipeline programs try to enrich the local talent pool and pipe the talents to the global pool by evaluating the high potentials, training them and engaging them in cross-sector and inter-regional projects.

"We also have projects working with Chinese universities to promote the application of bio-tech for a sustainable future among young people in China," said Dai.

In 2016, Novozymes expects a sales growth of one to three percent. Growth earnings before interest and tax is expected at one to three percent, while net profit growth is expected at eight to 10 percent.