Kesheng Group: Lay Equal Stress on Technology and Marketing

Established in 1992, Jiangsu Kesheng Group Co., Ltd. (Kesheng Group) is made up of several members like Jiangsu Kesheng Pharmaceutical Industry Co., Ltd., and is mainly committed to the production and sales of pesticides as well as biochemical medicines. As the biggest production base of imidacloprid and pyridaben in China, Kesheng Group already has 11 its products listed as key pollution-free pesticides promoted nationwide. It now has the capacity of manufacturing 20 000 tons of pesticide technical and various advanced environmentally friendly products every year with the products falling into 100 varieties of more than 40 series in five categories like insecticides, fungicides and so on.

Market adjustment   

Kesheng Group said that, influenced by the financial crisis, its pesticide export in the second half of 2008 was significantly less than that in the first half. However, as the domestic market further recovers with policy support and benefits for agriculture, rural areas and farmers, it is estimated that the domestic demand in 2009 will increase slightly. In the future, environmentally friendly pesticides will enjoy a broad market. Moreover, China and India will become manufacturing centers of pesticide technical worldwide, and some large foreign companies will gain most of the profits in pesticide market through OEM (original equipment manufacturer) and processing of preparations relying on China's rich pesticide technical resources.
   Based on the above judgments, Kesheng Group is currently speeding up its progress in research and development of pesticides, and actively promoting its new products abroad. It sets the focus on the markets in source countries of rice planthopper, such as Vietnam and Thailand in Southeast Asian, where the company is now promoting 25% pymetrozine, a new product which has independent intelligence property rights in China and also has significant effect in controlling migratory rice insect pests. According to Kesheng Group, its promotion plan for this product is in line with Vietnam's development program towards 2010, because it is believed that Vietnam is going to increase the use of products which feature good control effects, wide selection, simple application, easy decomposition and low toxicity, and the 25% pymetrozine produced by Kesheng Group meets all these requirements. In addition, countries like Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are now severely plagued by about 3 000 kinds of crop pests and hundreds of species of weeds, and flies and mosquitoes in particular. However, these countries invariably lag behind in the development of their pesticide industries and have to rely on imports, thus providing a broad market for China's pesticide manufacturers. Kesheng Group will seize this opportunity to promote new products in these areas.     
   As for the European and American markets, Kesheng Group believes that, although the 2008 pesticide markets in areas like South America and Europe were greatly influenced by the financial crisis, the international pesticide market will be bound to recover in 2010 after the 2009 market adjustment. Then, Kesheng Group will promptly adjust its pesticide sales strategy in America and Europe in accordance with the economic environment.


Scientific and technological innovation    

Kesheng Group has the largest imidacloprid synthesizer in China, and imidacloprid is a 'green' agricultural insecticide widely used in the early prevention and control of various kinds of crop pests such as aphid and plant hopper. Kesheng Group says that in 1992, for the first time in China, it developed imidacloprid by synthesizing original drugs into dicyclopentadiene. Then, in 1993, the technology was adopted in industrialized production. After years of development, the company has built the largest imidacloprid synthesizer in China, while its imidacloprid series, since entering the market, have remained the top two in market share for 10 consecutive years and are sold to more than 30 countries and regions. The company also says that imidacloprid is and will still be one of the best varieties to prevent pests like rice white-backed planthopper in the future.
    The company attaches great importance to extension development. In particular, it bought out the exclusive domestic license rights for IPP (a new-generation neonicotinoid insecticide co-developed with East China University of Science and Technology) with RMB20 million. IPP has significantly higher activity against imidacloprid-resistant rice planthopper than imidacloprid, and also has acaricidal effectiveness. In the later period, Kesheng Group will accelerate its application for a temporary pesticide production license and the industrialization of pesticide production. Its later research has also received support from the National Basic Research Program (973 Program), National High Technology Research and Development Program (863 Program) and the National Scientific and Technical Support Plan during the 11th Five-Year Program (2006-2010). It is believed that its products will play an important role in preventing and controlling imidacloprid-resistant pests and family sanitary insects.    
   At present, Kesheng Group is devoted to works like raising the imidacloprid technical content by 2 percentage points to 97%, improving the quality of its products like pyridaben series, and promoting energy conservation and emission reduction in pesticide industry. Beyond that, it is also fully committed to the standard drafting and experimental confirmation work for imidacloprid and pyridaben relevant products. It has also taken responsibility developing a GMP standard for pesticide processing in China.