Building an innovation-powered economy

A1 China's development particularly over the past 40 years has been unprecedented. Its consistently high growth rates have enabled it to substantially improve the quality of life of its people. This is reflected across a range of development indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality, GDP per capita and its overarching achievement.

There are a number of achievements that we in Sasol can be truly proud of, most notably the beneficiation of coal and gas to liquid fuels and chemicals.

Sasol has been present on the Chinese mainland for almost 30 years through sales offices and as a producer in Nanjing Chemical Park in Jiangsu province. We are now building on this foundation with a new alkoxylation plant, also in Nanjing Chemical Park, which will be starting up in the coming months.

A2 Although the growth rate may be trending down, the economy itself is growing at a rate of more than 6 percent. Given the size of the Chinese economy, this means that the increment of growth in economic activity, year-on-year, remains significant.

The slowdown in growth we are seeing is of no major concern to our long-term China strategy. Short-term movements need to be taken into account, but Sasol's China strategy still foresees strong growth and opportunity.

A3 Sasol believes that the Foreign Investment Law will provide greater investment certainty and will promote further investment in China. This protection of intellectual property, removal of restrictions on how companies are structured and greater freedom in repatriating profits creates a more conducive investment environment.

A4 Chinese companies are already heavily invested in continuously increasing the quality of their products and driving innovation. Quality control and improvement can be seen everywhere in the chemicals industry and some innovative commercial chemical pathways have been developed in China.

Furthermore, the Foreign Investment Law will create an environment in which companies will compete locally. China has done exceptionally well in continuously enhancing the level of technical skill of its people and we anticipate that this will continue, leading to higher levels of innovation in the new economic environment.

A5 Reducing unnecessary bureaucracy is a key step in enhancing growth. Often this stands in the way of innovation. At the same time, at Sasol we appreciate and support the Chinese government's significant efforts to continuously enhance safety, health and environmental standards, especially in the chemicals sector. Safety has the highest priority in our operations.

Our experience on the ground has been that matters are dealt with in a timely manner and we welcome ongoing efforts to simplify the approval processes that will enhance work efficiency.