SEI Starts Optical Fiber Drawing at Chengdu JV, China

Sumitomo Electric Industries (SEI) announced on Friday the firm starts optical fiber production at Chengdu SEI-Futong Optical Cable, a joint venture 51% controlled by Futong Group and 49% by SEI. Chengdu SEI-Futong Optical Cable was established in November 2008 and started optical cable production in January 2009. The JV has procured optical fiber from the group company so far but starts self production when optical fiber demand is strongly increasing in China.

The JV introduced fiber drawing equipment based on SEI’s state-of-art technology and held an opening ceremony of the new optical fiber factory on July 8. Fiber preform will be supplied by SEI and Futong’s another JV, Hangzhou SEI-Futong Optical Fiber, starting commercial operation this autumn. At present, SEI exports preform from Japan to SEI Optical Fiber & Cable (Shenzhen), another JV with Futong. SEI Optical Fiber & Cable (Shenzhen) draws optical fiber from preform and supplies fiber to Chengdu.

Capital fund for Chengdu SEI-Futong Optical Cable is US$ 30 million. The current employee number is approximately 300. China recently became the world largest consumer of optical fiber with active construction of telecommunication infrastructures.