The Shanghai-based company, which said it is one of China’s largest makers of nano-precipitated calcium carbonate, said China’s 4 trillion yuan (US$586 billion) economic stimulus plan is pushing growth for NPCC used in PVC window profiles and other plastic building products, automobile tires and various polyethylene materials.

Shengda’s shares are traded on the U.S. Nasdaq exchange. In an Aug. 11 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said the Zibo facility will give it 250,000 metric tons of NPCC capacity by the end of the year, an increase of slightly more than 30 percent.

The company said it is investing about US$60 million (410.3 million yuan) in the Zibo facility.

In an Aug. 11 conference call with analysts, company officials said its sales into PVC building products increased 11 percent in the second quarter of 2009, ending June 30, while its sales to PE makers accounted for 15 percent of overall sales, up from 1 percent a year ago.

Shengda also said it supplies materials to three of China’s 10 largest tire makers, and saw its sales increase 20 percent in that segment compared with the second quarter 2009. Tires account for about 40 percent of its business.

“During the [second] quarter, the Chinese economy showed signs of recovery with positive growth recorded by both the automobile and construction industries, which have begun responding to the Chinese government’s… stimulus policy,” Chen Xiangzhi, ShengdaTech president and CEO, said in a statement.

During an Aug. 11 conference call, a company official said that “we believe the Chinese government’s economic stimulus plan will create demand from several major infrastructure projects that will continue to drive growth in the plastics industry,” according to a transcript of the call on the investment Web site seekingalpha.com.

Sales from nano-materials grew to US$46.8 million (320 million yuan) in the first half of 2009, up from US$32.5 million (222.2 million yuan) in the first half of 2008, Shengda said.

The company said it has a research partnership with China’s Tsinghua University, including a patented membrane dispersion technology, to target higher-end NPCC markets.

In spite of the growth in its NPCC business, Shengda said its overall sales in the first half of 2009 fell 31 percent, to US$46.9 million (320 million yuan), as the company was forced last year by Chinese authorities to close a facility using coal to make ammonia-based chemicals for farmers and other chemical plants.

That facility, in Tai’an, Shandong province, was closed because it was too near to residential areas and non-manufacturing businesses, the company said in an SEC filing.

Shengda tried to merge that operation with another chemical firm in Shandong province, but abandoned that effort in March and said in the Aug. 11 SEC filing that it does not yet have an alternative plan.