ANTWERPEN, Belgium — Specialty chemicals distributor Azelis announced a new agreement with Merck. As of April 1, 2020, Azelis now distributes Merck Performance Materials’ complete range in Vietnam for personal care, CASE, food and health, and industrial chemicals.

The partnership is an extension of existing distribution agreements between Azelis and Merck in other countries. To ensure business continuity and the best customer experience, former Merck employees will join Azelis team in Vietnam, reinforcing Azelis’ local sales and customer service for the Personal Care and CASE market segments.

Merck Performance Materials’ portfolio includes pigments, active ingredients and high-quality chemical raw materials. The agreement underlines Azelis’ commitment to organically grow with its key partners in Asia-Pacific.

Laurent Nataf, CEO and President Asia Pacific at Azelis, said, “Merck Performance Materials’ high-quality range will be a great asset for Azelis Vietnam, enabling us to offer innovative, tailor-made solutions to customers for their entire lateral value chain. Our dedicated application laboratories in Vietnam will play a critical role, allowing us to support our customers in formulation of innovative concepts that shorten their time to market and help them become and remain market leaders in their industries. This new agreement is also an important acknowledgement of our continuous efforts to be a preferred and trusted partner on a global scale.”

Panutin Tantichuwet, Head of Commercial Southeast Asia and Australia/New Zealand at Merck, added, “Azelis is a global leader in specialty chemicals distribution. Their local technical sales team will help us focus on enhanced services to our customers in Vietnam, where we aim to improve customer intimacy, innovation and technology effort. We are confident that thanks to our strong collaboration with Azelis, we will be able to serve Merck’s customers even better for future business growth.”

Azelis has significantly grown in Asia-Pacific during the last five years, establishing presence in 11 countries and opening more than 25 laboratories.