Rhodia Expands Its Production Capacity for Engineering Plastics.

On October 12, 2000 Rhodia announced a capital spending plan for a total of 23 million euros designed to expand the Group's production capacity for engineering plastics by almost 20% in response to extremely strong growth in demand on the European, North American and Asian markets.

This plan involves the reorganization of Rhodia's production sites in France, Italy, and Poland, an increase in its compounding and polyamide polymerization capacity as well as the reallocation of products to the Group's different production facilities in Europe.

When this industrial reorganization is complete, each listed product will be manufactured according to its optimum production path in terms of both quality and cost, with each site focusing on its particular area of excellence. After the launch of TechnylstarTM, a new polyamide derived from Rhodia's patented polymerization and compounding technology that boasts an extremely high degree of fluidity and outstanding levels of performance, the Group signed an agreement this year with GE Polymerland for the worldwide distribution of polyamide engineering plastics, the first phase of which became effective on October 1st, 2000.