CLARIANT, a leading specialty chemicals maker, is seeking add-on acquisitions in countries including China as part of its strategy for profitable growth, but it ruled out big purchases.

Chief Executive Hariolf Kottmann said such "bolt-on" acquisitions will help close technology and regional gaps and extend the value chain for the Swiss company, whose products include fire retardants, ingredients for crop chemicals and shampoos, and de-icing agents for the aviation industry.

"It's highly likely this will happen in China as well," Kottmann said in a recent interview in Zurich. "We have our targets which we don't disclose."

But he ruled out another "transformational acquisition" like the US$2.5 billion purchase of German catalyst maker Sud-Chemie in 2011.

Like other global companies, Clariant is expanding manufacturing and R&D in China on the back of demand from the nation's rapid urbanization and huge population. That's despite a slowdown in the world's second-largest economy amid the government's effort to reorient its export-driven economy.

Chief Financial Officer Patrick Jany said the reorientation has an impact on the plastics and electronics markets which Clariant serves, but on the other hand there is very good development in oil, mining and consumer care markets in China.