Beijing-backed Citic Resources Holdings yesterday stepped up its efforts to scuttle a planned takeover of Thai Petrochemical Industries by Thailand's state-controlled PTT, saying it was willing to pay $900m for a 75 per cent stake in TPI.

The statement in Hong Kong by Peter Kwok, the chairman of Citic Resources, comes days before the Thai bankruptcy court overseeing TPI's highly contentious debt restructuring must rule on whether Citic should be given access to TPI's books to conduct due diligence.