The joint venture announced in Spring 1999 between the American chemical giant DuPont and the Japanese company Teijin Ltd for polyester films (see PIE-Nos. 04 and 12, 1999) officially began operating on January 1, 2000. The new global company has seven legal entities in the United States, UK, Netherlands, Luxembourg, China, Japan and Indonesia. While it is known as TeijinDuPontFilms in Japan and Indonesia, it is called DuPontTeijinFilms in the rest of the world. DuPontTeijin S.A. (Contern, L-2984 Luxembourg) acts as the European headquarters. The new world market leader for PET films (according to its own statistics) will have sales of USD 1.4bn and production capacities of over 300,000 t/y. More than 4,000 employees work for the company at 17 sites throughout the world. There are European production and research sites in Dumfries, Scotland; Rozenburg, Netherlands; Wilton, England and Luxembourg.