Indonesia’s Latinusa Increases Net Profit by 77.5% in 2010

PT Latinusa, a major tin plate maker in Indonesia and a subsidiary of Nippon Steel, posted 74.576 billion Rupiah net profit for a full year of 2010, increasing by 77.5% from the previous year. Nippon Steel invested in Latinusa in 2009. Nippon Steel leveraged Latinusa’s proposal power and improved the soft system to meet customers’ requests more. Latinusa plans to expand production capacity by more than 20% to 160,000 tonnes per year in 2011 with approximately US$ 16 million capex.

Latinusa’s net sales increased by 15% to 1.362 trillion Rupiah in 2010 compared with 2009 and the production volume increased by 19% to 106,000 tonnes. The firm successfully passed raw material cost upsurge on selling price of steel products. Nippon Steel appreciated Latinusa’s sale and profit growth was stronger than Indonesia’s economic growth rate at 7-8% per year. Return on Sales improved by 1.9 points to 5.5%.

Latinusa became Nippon Steel’s consolidated subsidiary in December 2009. Mitsui Corporation, Metal One and Nippon Steel Trading also hold Latinusa’s shares.