Hans Engel On U.S. Employee Skills And Infrastructure

Hans Engel, Chief Financial Officer at BASF SE

and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at the BASF Corporation, chatted with CNBC's Squawk Box Monday morning about the chemical company's role in the United States' economy and what they place importance on when investing in a country's economy. BASF has spent about $7 billion on acquisitions in the U.S.. "We have, in the United States, roughly 15,000 employees," said Engel. But it could be more. Unfortunately, there is a severe shortage of engineers and other highly skilled workers in the U.S., and according to Engel, the needs of companies like BASF can't be met by our current workforce. "What we need is experienced, skilled, well-educated workers in our plants, in the chemical plants. There is certainly a bottleneck there that holds investment back. That forces us to invest at least a little slower than what we could actually do," said Engel. "And this [situation] we're in, in particular in the chemical industry, with cheap, natural gas. There's is an awful lot of investment coming; announced. My view on that is not all of that will be implemented. We cannot implement all of that due to the bottlenecks that we have with respect to an educated and skilled workforce." The U.S. lacks in other areas too. According to Engel, infrastructure in the U.S. is a major concern for BASF. "I think the U.S. was leading 20 to 30 years ago, and has not invested enough in infrastructure," Engel said. "You can see that everywhere. You see that ports, how the ports are connected to railways, how they are connected with streets and bridges." Engel was consistent on infrastructure being a main driving force for investment, poising it as a standard on the global scale. "Emerging markets, typically, keep investing in their infrastructure, because they fully understand that they need to invest in their infrastructure to attract investment," said Engel. Despite the U.S. dragging in national infrastructure, Engel said that investing in U.S. is a priority. "We invest where our costumers are, and this being the second biggest chemical market, we invest in the U.S.," said Engel.