BEIJING, Nov. 16 -- Shanghai U.S. industrial conglomerate Honeywell has announced that it will move the headquarters of its electronic materials business from the United States to Shanghai to better position itself for further growth in Asia.

The company also announced that Shanghai UOP Ltd, the largest molecular sieve adsorbents manufacturing plant in Asia, has completed an expansion to boost capacity to meet growing demand in China. Shanghai UOP is a subsidiary company of Honeywell China.

"The relocation of the electronic materials' global headquarters to Shanghai will further underline Honeywell's emphasis on China as an important platform to drive Honeywell's globalization," Honeywell China's CEO Shane Tedjarati said.

Honeywell Specialty Materials, a 4.7 billion dollars business group based in Morristown, New Jersey, mainly manufactures high-performance specialty materials, including fluorine products, specialty films and additives, advanced fibers and composites, and materials for petroleum refining.

Honeywell has moved the Asia-Pacific headquarters for all of its industries - aerospace, automation and control solutions, special materials and transportation systems - to Shanghai. It also established six global technology research and development (R&D) centers in China.

It currently invests more than $500 million in China and employs more than 5,000 people.

According to market analysts, China's integrated circuit (IC) market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 16 percent through 2011 - twice that of the worldwide growth rate in the same period - and will account for about 90 billion dollars of the nearly 180 billion dollars worth of forecasted earnings for the entire Asia-Pacific region.

(Source: China Daily)