Germany-based Bayer Group said that while China is continuously exporting products to the global market, it’s also expected to export technology to the rest of the world.

“We are aiming to reach a global innovation footprint for Bayer and its partners by exporting China-made technology to the rest of the world by 2020,” said Patrick Thomas, CEO of Bayer MaterialScience, a subgroup of the Bayer Group and a world leading polymeric materials provider for high tech solutions.

According to Thomas, China is quickly catching up with peers due to its increased spending, which accounts for about 15 percent of Bayer MaterialScience’s global R&D spending, or 242 million euros ($311.8 million) in 2012.

Thomas’s expectations are based on the company’s regional innovation hub in Asia-Pacific, which was officially launched on Tuesday at the company’s polymer research and development center in Shanghai.

Together with its customers, the company will develop new ideas for the use of high-performance plastics, foams and coatings in key sectors such as mobility, construction, IT and renewable energy.

Li Yongwu, chairman of the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation believes the regional innovation hub is in line with the promotion of indigenous innovation and efforts to enhance R&D laid out in China’s 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15).