Construction Begins On $1.1-Bln Soda Ash Project In East China

S. dollars from Taiwan Glass Group in Huai'an, east China's Jiangsu Province.  The group aims to ensure supplies of soda ash, a main raw material for glass, by exploiting rich resources in Huai'an, said an official with the Huai'an economic development zone, where the project is.  The first phase of the project, with an investment of 600 million yuan (87.8 million U.S. dollars), is scheduled to start production in 2011, with annual business income of 3 billion yuan.  It will have a production capacity of 1 million tonnes of soda ash, 1 million tonnes of ammonium chloride.  The group, founded in 1964, began its investment on the mainland in 1993.It has set up plants in Kunshan city in Jiangsu, Qingdao in Shandong Province and Chengdu in Sichuan Province.
 
The group produced nearly 2.7 million tonnes of glass last year.