Kobe Steel’ Copper & Aluminium Unit Posts 28% More Profit

Kobe Steel announced on Monday the firm posted favorable sales and profit for its copper and aluminium related business segment in April-June 2006. The consolidated net sales for the segment increased by 27.8% to 98.543 billion yen in April-June 2006 from the same period of 2005 and the operating profit by 35.1% to 8.875 billion yen. The sales were firm for copper plate for electronic materials and aluminium substrate for magnetic disks, while aluminium can material business was slow for beverages. In addition the firm accounted for 4 billion yen of profit by inventory valuation under the gross average method.