In 1978, a contract was signed for a Kuraray Clarino production plant in Yantai, Shandong Province.

In China, production of natural leather (the raw material for leather products) was minimal, and ordinary people's shoes and bags were usually made of cloth. The Chinese government sought to introduce artificial leather manufacturing technology to improve people's lifestyles, and built a manufacturing plant and raw material production plant for Clarino—a type of synthetic leather developed by Kuraray—in Yantai.

Later, a contract was signed to build a similar plant in Lanzhou, Shaanxi Province (018).