TOKYO, JAPAN: Shin-Etsu Chemical Co said it plans to proactively expand its silicones business, one of its main businesses, by implementing facility investments
in Japan totalling ¥20 billion. Each new facility is scheduled to be completed by March of 2017.
At its Gunma complex, its largest production base in Japan, it will invest ¥5 billion to construct a new research building adjoining its existing Silicone-Electronics Materials Research Centre, aiming to start operations in the spring of 2016. Furthermore, it has decided to invest another ¥12 billion at the Gunma complex to carry out projects such as construction of new production facilities.
Moreover, at its Na Tokyo oetsu plant in Niigata prefecture, it will invest ¥3 billion to set up a new manufacturing facility for silicone products that will be used as a marine paint material.
The new facility investments will help Shin-Etsu strengthen and expand its silicones facilities at each stage, from R&D and trial production to mass production, it said.
Other than Japan, the company has invested about ¥5 billion in Thailand for a new industrial land adjoining its Thai silicone facilities, where a major production capacity expansion project is on-going. In the US, Shin-Etsu has established a new technical centre in New Jersey.
Silicone is a highly functional material that is used in a wide range of application fields in such industries as electric, electronics, automobile, building construction, cosmetics and toiletries, it said.
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