Chemical producer Evonik is investing in new large-scale industrial plants, capacity expansions and new research centers in Germany, where CEO Klaus Engel said it "has a strong and healthy industrial base."

Our investments in Germany are designed to strengthen the international competitiveness of Evonik," Engel added. In 2013, the Essen-based group generated 24% of its sales in its home country, where it employs 21,000 people.

Evonik is now in the process of starting up a new plant for functionalized polybutadienes at Marl, its largest facility worldwide. Investment volume is in the mid double-digit million euro range. Important considerations for the site selection included proximity to key customers and the excellent infrastructure of the Marl Chemical Park, Engel said.

Evonik also recently commissioned a partial facility for crosslinking reagents, at Wesseling near Cologne, spending a low double digit sum. The new production site for the products used, for example, in solar panels, was integrated into an existing facility, which produces one of the source materials.

Other projects include new capacities for C4-based products at Marl, an expanded specialty silicon production at Essen and a new plant for polymeric dispersion agents at the same site.

The German group is also planning a number of smaller capacity expansions, including for PA 12 in Marl, while at the same time modernizing and maintaining the other domestic sites.

Among German R&D investments, Evonik is building a new research center for silanes at Rheinfelden and working on active principle formulations for parenteral drugs recently in new laboratory space at Darmstadt.

A new application technology center for the tire industry was opened in Wesseling, which the group claims is the world's largest production site for precipitated silicas used in low rolling-resistance tires. A state-of-the-art research center with a focus on cosmetics was opened in Essen in mid-2013.