SUMITOMO BAKELITE CO., LTD. (Headquarters: at 2-5-8 Higashi Shinagawa, Shinagawa
ward, Tokyo; Tsuneo Moriya, President) has been carrying out feasibility studies
to expand its epoxy resin copper-clad laminate business based on off-shore
manufacturing, and recently decided to establish an affiliate (company name to
be decided later), a manufacturing plant to be built in Macao, China, holding
100% of their shares directly by its own arrangement.
Epoxy resin copper-clad laminate is growing ,
particularly in Asian markets, as a substrate material for print circuit boards
for PC's, communication-related devices, digital home appliances and TV game
machines, etc., taking advantages of its superior quality to meet the growing
needs especially of multi-layer circuits which are preferable for those uses.
From the view point of the convenient location, which should be closer to
the growing markets and advantageous in cost competitiveness, we determined this
time to invest not in Japan but overseas focusing on providing convenient
services to meet the needs of customers over there. This is the first time that
a Japanese firm moved into Asian counties independently without any joint
partnership for offshore manufacturing of this product.
Thus, we expect to
establish an integrated business strategy including procurement of raw materials
in Asia, as well as production with higher competitiveness in cost, by
transferring our cutting-edge technologies aiming to realize an ideal plant to
comply with the needs of the IT machinery and device industry.
In the first
stage of investment we are going to install one manufacturing line and in due
time when the market trend is favorable for further expansion we will consider
to double the lines eventually reaching a total production capacity of 600,000
sqms./month.
As for the reasons why we chose Macao, the location in the
vicinity of Hong Kong will facilitate logistics and there we can receive various
tax incentives and the infrastructure provided is well dependable.
We will
expedite to kick off the production as soon as
possible.
|
| Profile of the new affiliate: |
| 1. |
Building site: |
at a zone in the Special Administrative District of
Macao, People's Republic of China |
| 2. |
Capitalization: |
Approximately 2.8 billion yen |
| 3. |
Investment/ ownership : |
invested and owned 100% by SUMITOMO
BAKELITE |
| 4. |
Plant area: |
Approximately
37,000m2 |
| 5. |
Number of Employees: |
About 100 |
| 6. |
Press capacity: |
30,000m2 output per
month |
| 7. |
Sales plan: |
Approximately 3.5 billion yen in first fiscal year |
| 8. |
Estimated date of the completion of the
1ST line: |
End of December 2002 |
|
Thank you |
|
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