The local Engro Chemical Pakistan has announced that it is to establish a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plant in a joint venture with Mitsubishi Corporation and Asahi Glass Company, both of Japan. The three companies have signed a memorandum of understanding to set up a plant at Port Qasim, near Karachi.

The plant will have a capacity of 100,000 tonnes a year of suspension grade PVC resin and will cost an estimated $80 million100 million. Engro says that production will begin in 1999.

The three companies plan to expand the plant's initial PVC capacity at a later stage.

The project will also be extended to produce PVC's main raw material, vinyl chloride monomer (VCM). Before production of VCM, the raw material will be imported and will be handled by Engro Paktank Terminal (EPT), a joint venture of Engro Chemical and the Netherlands' Paktank. EPT has signed an agreement to construct a liquid chemical terminal at Port Qasim (MEED 8 3 96)