FUGING, China – Pearlescent pigments producer Fujian Kuncai Material Technology Co. Ltd. (Kuncai), based in Fuqing, Fujian province, China, has started its own marketing and sales office in Europe under the name Kuncai Europe B.V.

Kuncai has formed a joint venture in Europe with partner QolorTech B.V., a marketing and sales company in the Netherlands with a long history in pigments. The QolorTech sales and technical staff responsible for effect pigments have joined the new company. Kuncai Europe is based in Vaassen, the Netherlands, and is a total service company with a prime focus on the European and Turkish markets.

“With this important step, Kuncai improves its services to their customers in Europe and optimizes the support to distributors in Europe,” said Bingkun Xie, Chairman of the Board of Kuncai.

“By combining the unique quality of the Kuncai pearls and our knowledge of the European market in this new sales organization, we will sustain the strong growth scenario of Kuncai in Europe,” said Michiel de Jong, Managing Director of Kuncai Europe.

Kuncai is among the largest producers of pearlescent pigments in the world and offers a wide variety of pigments based on natural mica, synthetic mica and borosilicate for automotive, coatings, plastics, inks and cosmetics. The construction of an additional production plant is in progress, boosting the capacity towards 40,000 metric tons.

Kuncai Europe will manage the marketing and sales of the full product range into the European and Turkish market. For technical support, a fully equipped service laboratory is in place in Vaassen. Arrie ten Caat, who has been a leading figure in the pearlescent pigment market for the last 25 years, will manage the new team. The company plans to expand the technical sales staff over the course of 2015.