Toyota Tsusho Expands Metal Businesses at Overseas

Toyota Tsusho Corporation, the trading house of Toyota Motor Corporation group, aims to expand the metal related businesses at overseas largely as a part of the grovel strategy of Toyota Motor. Toyota Tsusho plans to increase the number of the overseas bases from present 28 to 37 within fiscal 2006 exding March 2007 for steel sheet blanking, aluminium melting, metal recycling inside factories and aluminium processing. The firm estimates 10 billion yen of total investment for the project.The metal division of Toyota Tsusho has advanced the overseas business expansion mainly for physical distribution and metal processing functions in order to supply better services to local users. The division is engaged in 4 metal related businesses worldwide. The main business is steel sheet blanking to process steel sheet at overseas bases and supply the products to local users. As to the aluminum melting business, the firm has sought to decrease the environmental load and production cost. The recycling business is to collect and process ferrous scrap generated inside factories. The other business is aluminum product processing.The division will establish 5 steel sheet blanking bases within fiscal 2006 in TTSPT of Thailand, TTMSP of South Africa, Tianjin Fengtian Steel Process of Guangzhou, China, TTSCA of Australia and MSS TX of Texas, the U.S.A. The division started the operation of the aluminium melting plant in Tawara, Japan in July and will start the new plant operation in Tianjin, China in September. The number of the aluminium melting plant will become to 11 then.The division operates total 14 recycling business bases worldwide when Thai new base started operation at the beginning of August. The number of aluminum processing bases will become to 3 including Thai base which started operation at the beginning of 2006, the new base in Tianjin, China which will start operation soon and the existent base in Japan, Toyotsu Hitetsu Center. The metal related business bases will increases by 9 to 47 bases as total including 10 coil centers.