Tokyo Rope to Expand Steel Code Sales by 40% in F2011

Tokyo Rope Manufacturing plans to increase the sales of steel code business by 40% to 24.5 billion yen in fiscal 2011 starting April 2011 from fiscal 2010. The Malaysian plant started production of saw wire for silicon cutting and plans to start wire code production while the plant eyes wire saw machine production. Tokyo Rope shifts the tire code production for Association of Southeast Asian Nations from Tokyo Rope (Changzhou) to Malaysian plant when Changzhou plant doubles saw wire production capacity in second half of 2011. Tokyo Rope builds 3 major production bases for wire saw in Japan, China and Southeast Asia as saw wire and tire code.

Tokyo Rope shifts a part of facility to make tire code from Kitakami plant in Iwate to Malaysian plant and shifts monthly several 100 tonnes of production from Changzhou to Malaysia. Tokyo Rope reduces excess capacity at Kitakami and optimizes the production by shifting the production to consuming area. Malaysian plant serves growing demand in Southeastern Asian countries.

Malaysian plant will start tire code production to ship to Southeastern countries including Taiwan, Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia as major steel code base in ASEAN after the plant established commercial operation of saw wire since October. The plant eyes potential export to India. Changzhou plant already started wire saw production in November and will double saw wire production capacity by October 2011.

Many companies in solar energy generation industry have plants in Malaysia and China. Tokyo Rope expects saw wire demand will increase to 1.5-2 times in fiscal 2011-2013 in ASEAN and China. The firm tries to secure 30-40% share in the market through the production network building.

Kitakami plant, which makes tire code and saw wire, and Kitakami machinery plant, which makes wire saw, focus on high quality products for domestic market. The plants also develop technology and new products as mother plants of the global network.