Furukawa Circuit Foil Raises Commodity Copper Foil Price by 100-150 Yen From January

Furukawa Circuit Foil is advancing the price negotiations of electrolytic copper foil in domestic and Southeast Asian markets. As for the commodity foil which has thickness at 35 micrometers, the firm raised the price by 100-150 yen per kilogram from shipping in January for domestic, and by 1 dollar per kilogram from shipping in February for Southeast Asia because the copper price which is material is continuing to rise.The firm carried out the hike of the commodity foil at 2 times for domestic users, and one time for Southeast Asia in fiscal 2005, the year that ends in March. If this hike becomes widespread, the commodity foil price at thickness of 35 micrometer would become just over 8 dollars per kilogram, would exceed the peak price in 2000 when IT revolution-induced boom. However, the firm’s profit margin becomes bad from 2000 by raw material price increase. As for domestic major electrolytic copper foil makers, Mitsui Mining and Smelting, and Nikko Materials already increased the copper foil price for domestic and overseas.International copper bare metal price has risen sharply by about 1.5 times for the past one year for the settlement of LME (London Metal Exchange). Now, it is in the strong tone at around 4,700 dollars per tonne. No. 1 copper wire price which is material of electrolytic copper foil increased to 510 yen per kilogram in the ended of 2004 from 328 yen in the beginning of last year for the price that the purchase price of the distributors in the Tokyo area.