Asahi Industries to Expend up to 15 billion yen by 2010

Tokyo based major concrete reinforcing steel bar maker, Asahi Industries invests 10-15 billion yen for renewal of old facilities, environmental actions and better quality by 2010 under the 5-year plan started fiscal 2006 ending March 2007. The firm explained the expenditure plan at results briefing on Thursday. The firm already started building works for electric furnace dust treatment facility and the firm will expend 2-3 billion yen per year to improve corporate value. The firm builds Rotary Hearth Furnace provided by Nippon Steel for 900 million yen in fiscal 2006 to treat the dust and recover direct reduced iron. With the facility, Asahi Industries expects around 100 million yen of annual cost down. The firm plans renewal of the rolling mill in fiscal 2007 and the firm considers conversion of dust collector. The firm tries to increase the weight of high valued products when the domestic rebar demand is expected not to grow. The firm increases the sales of screw connective rebar for high rise building. The firm expects the sales will increase to 20,000 tonnes in fiscal 2006 from 14,000 tonnes in fiscal 2005 and the sales of high strength steel bar will increase to 115,000 tonnes from 86,000 tonnes. The firm tries to avoid direct competition with import by shifting higher valued products.The firm expects 5 billion yen of consolidated recurring profit and 2.9 billion yen of net profit for fiscal 2006 as the firm said before. The firm tries to improve the profitability by increasing the selling price.