Japan Major Trading Houses Expand Investment for Metal Businesses

Japanese major 7 trading firm plan to invest 1 trillion yen for metal business for 2-3 years. The investment will increase to near 4 times from past 2-3 years. They try to increase the expenditure for metal resources while the steel products units increase the investment to serve automobile and energy industry. The 5 trading firm except for Sumitomo Corporation, which controls investment in risk assets, and Kanematsu Corporation, of which investment plan by metal unit is much smaller than others, plan 1.06-1.08 trillion yen of investment compared with past 286.9 billion yen.

Metal business units of Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsui & Co., Sumitomo Corporation, Marubeni Corporation and Itochu Corporation posted 110.1 billion yen of consolidated net profit for April-June, which increased by 86% from same period of 2005 and represented 32% of total net profit for the 5 trading firms. With the rich cash, the metal business units are likely to accelerate to expand investment.