Muttenz, Switzerland - Specialty chemical company Clariant is relocating the headquarters of its Textile Chemicals Business Unit to Singapore, putting it closer to the major textiles manufacturing countries.

The move should be completed by mid 2011. The new headquarters will house the senior textile chemicals management was will as the global textile application technology group. The application development laborartory for technical textiles and finishing will be relocated to Muttenz along with the business unit's 60-perosn European sales and marketing operations group.

"Singapore is the optimum location from which to serve the key global textile markets across India, China and South East Asia. Positioning our management team close at hand will further strengthen our customer relationships and enhance our ability to respond quickly to the trends of this dynamic sector," said Thomas Winkler, head of theTextile Chemicals Business Unit.