Furukawa Circuit Foil to Expand Output Capacity

Furukawa Circuit Foil enjoys favorable market condition when the electrolytic copper foil demand recovered for high performance cell phone, personal computer and digital camera since second half of fiscal 2005 ended March 2006. The firm operates at full capacity for commodity grade foil for rigid circuit board along with firm demand for the major product of high performance special foil, WS copper foil for battery and flexible printed circuit board. The president Takeshi Hisamori said the WS foil sales increased to monthly 4.2 million square meters recently from 3.9 million square meters in second half of fiscal 2005 and 3.2 million square meters in first half of fiscal 2005. He said the commodity grade foil sales also increased by 200,000 square meters to 2.1 million square meters from first half of fiscal 2005. The total sales increases to 6.3 million square meters from 5.1 million square meters in first half of fiscal 2005 and 6 million square meters in second half of fiscal 2005. The firm launched no.4 plant to make WS foil in July 2005. Mr. Hisamori said the firm cannot meet the higher demand even after the firm introduced 10 drums for foil making in March. He said the firm adds another 10 drums by March 2007 to expand the output by 800,000 square meters to monthly 5 million square meters. Mr. Hisamori said the Taiwanese plant with monthly 3.4 million square meters of output capacity has kept full capacity operation mainly for commodity grade products for 3 years. The plant serves to printed circuit board industry for cell phone and flat panel display.