International
Netherlands aims to spur investment The government of the Netherlands is launching a major drive to put new life into the country's economy. Some $1.85 billion in public funds will be made available to industry each year between 1977 and 1980 in a far-ranging package of fiscal incentives to stimulate investments. These, in turn, are expected to provide much-needed employment opportunities, especially for skilled workers. In a document titled "Selective Economic Growth" presented to parliament in The Hague last month, Rudolf Lubbers, the 37-year-old minister of economic affairs, spelled out the general guidelines of the plan. He proposes that the government make available $1.3 billion annually in outright cash grants to qualifying companies that invest in the Netherlands during the coming four years. In addition, $500 million would be provided each year in the form of wage subsidies. And there would be $37 million available to help offset research and development expenses in 1977. This sum would rise gradually over the four-year life of the program, reaching $66 million in 1980. A system of rating premiums would be used as a guide to help the government decide where to place cash grant requests of more than $37 million each. One criterion is geographical location of a proposed investment. Projects to be sited in the north, east, and south of the country would be favored over those planned for the more heavily industrialized western region. Too, labor-intensive operations would get a higher rating than more capital-intensive ones. And their impact on the environment will be considered, "clean" industries gaining preference over polluting ones.
It's still too early to know where chemicals will fit into the investment scheme. Lubbers views the chemical industry as being of major importance to the overall Dutch economy and recognizes the high percentage of skilled labor that it employs. Presumably, a major determinant will be how high up in the rating premiums chemical companies would be placed. There are those, for instance, who think that chemical expansions should be curbed because of the large amounts of energy and of dwindling raw materials consumed by chemical operations. Chemical makers might be penalized, too, because of the public concern with their environmental impact. And some point out that chemical plants are more capital-intensive than labor-intensive. This is too simplistic a view, however, comments Dr. Jerard E. Bergen, director of the Chemical Industry Association of the Netherlands. ' O n e shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the chemical indus-
try is a very essential pillar of the economic structure of the country," he says. Chemicals alone accounted for more than 12% of the Netherlands' overall industrial output of nearly $52 billion last year. And the 100,000 or so people working directly in the industry should be multiplied by a factor of four to five to take account of the many ancillary industries that serve the chemical sector, he says. Somewhat ironically, perhaps, it is the one sector of the Dutch business community that has revealed plans for a major investment drive. This year, chemical companies in the Netherlands expect to spend 44% more than last year's $570 million total, and in 1977 they contemplate a further 18% spending rise. In contrast, a recent survey of investment plans shows that capital spending by Dutch industry as a whole this year and next will just about match last year's $2.5 billion spending level. Not everyone is overenthusiastic about Lubbers' proposal. It has come in for criticism from the unions, which are dissatisfied because the investment decisions still will remain largely with company management. Corporate planners, on the other hand, fear that the scheme will give too much control to the government in being able to dictate which projects receive grants on the basis of their relative degree of labor intensity. D
Strong outlook for cyanuric chloride
In Mobile, Ala., Degussa is building a unit for making 24,000 metric tons of cyanuric chloride annually. When the plant starts up next year, the bulk of the output will go to a Shell Chemical plant now under construction some 20 miles away. There, the cyanuric chloride will be converted to a triazine herbicide. These related developments point to the strong interdependence between triazine herbicides and cyanuric chloride from which they are made. They also point to the reasonably strong outlook for cyanuric chloride Lubbers: selective economic growth worldwide. According to a survey of cyanuric chloride just completed by Paris-based Bureau d'Etudes Industrielles et de Coopération (BEICIP), part of the Institut Français du Pétrole, some 79,000 metric tons of the chemical go into production of triazine herbicides each year. That's equivalent to about 84% of the 94,500 metric tons or so used annually worldwide. Optical brighteners and dyes represent the next largest outlets. The future of triazine herbicides is difficult to predict, the BEICIP report admits. However, it notes that the belief in the industry is that growth will continue strong. The handful of companies that make cyanuric chloride have a combined annual global capacity of about 130,000 metric tons, the BEICIP study estimates. In the next few years, this capacity is expected to grow to about 170,000 metric tons.
Major producers are Ciba-Geigy, with plants in Alabama and Louisiana, and Degussa, whose two existing plants are in Antwerp, Belgium, and Wesseling, West Germany. The chemical is made by a two-step reaction. In the first, chlorine interacts with hydrogen cyanide to form cyanogen chloride. Cyclic trimerization yields the final product. The major producers have developed continuous processes involving vapor-phase trimerization over activated carbon and metallic salt promoters. The development of pre- and postemergence herbicides based on substituted cyclic triazines provided a major stimulus to the commercial fortunes of cyanuric chloride. Ciba-Geigy supplies nearly 80% of this class of herbicide because of its strong patent position from intensive fundamental research in the field. But now that many of these patents are expiring, a number of competitors are entering the field. A promising new product is Bladex, developed by Degussa and tested in collaboration with several Shell companies. According to its promoters, it undergoes a fairly rapid rate of degradation after application. This characteristic may open up markets for the herbicide in areas where more than one crop yield per growing season is the norm. Until now, multiple cropping could be jeopardized by the presence of residues of the more persistent triazine herbicides. D July 26, 1976 C&EN
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