4 traders to launch online chemicals mart in Asia.

TOKYO, March 1 Kyodo

Four Japanese general trading houses have invested in a U.S. company running an Internet-based global chemicals exchange in a move aimed at setting up a similar online market in Asia, industry sources said Tuesday.

Mitsui & Co., Mitsubishi Corp., Sumitomo Corp. and Marubeni Corp. have invested in San Francisco-based ChemConnect Inc., which runs a Web site called World Chemical Exchange, the sources said.

Although the four traders were split into two competing camps over the creation of an online market for steel products in Japan, they have managed to work out a single policy for chemicals, they said.

If a similar Web site is launched for the 60 trillion yen Japanese chemicals market, it could absorb a significant amount of transactions, centering on products whose added values are relatively low such as industrial chemicals and nylons, they said.

ChemConnect runs an open and neutral electronic marketplace for all types of chemicals and plastics, and has such major chemicals makers as Dow Chemical Co. of the Unites States and GASF Group of Germany as investors.

More than 5,000 manufacturers, buyers, and intermediaries are participating the round-the-clock market from around 100 countries to conduct real-time online transactions.

For steel products, Mitsui and Mitsubishi teamed up to launch in July an online steel market with e-Steel Inc., a U.S. e-commerce steel trader, while Sumitomo has joined the camp of Marubeni and Itochu Corp. in a similar plan to be launched in September with MetalSite LP of the U.S.