Japan’s market for footwear saw its overall supply rise by 1.7 percent year-on-year for 2017, reaching a total of 704.06 million pairs of shoes for the year. This represents the first increase to the figure in four years, as well as the country’s first time in three years to break through the 700 million mark. Total domestic production – including...
Sumitomo Riko Co. Ltd. (TYO:5191) and Nagoya University recently entered into the second year of a collaborative research agreement under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). Formed last April, the agreement targets joint research into heat management for organic materials. Looking to accelerate the deployment of heat management measures in materials technology, this comprehensive agreement targets four annual...
Carbon black manufacturer Tokai Carbon Co. Ltd. (TYO:5301) announced on June 26 that it has concluded an agreement to acquire all shares in U.S.-based carbon black manufacturer Sid Richardson Carbon Ltd. (SRC) and its affiliates SRCG Ltd. and New SRCG Genpar LLC. Tokai Carbon is set to pay a total of 34.1 billion yen ($308.74 million) for the acquisition, which...
Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. announced on June 21 that it has reached an agreement with Welset Plast Extrusions Pvt. Ltd. of India to acquire the latter’s polyvinyl chloride (PVC) compound business. The business is to be handed over to Mitsubishi Chemical this autumn. With locations both in India and overseas, Welset conducts masterbatch operations – including those for PVC – in...
The Japan Belting Manufacturers Association recently released statistics showing Japan’s domestic production of transmission belts to have increased 2 percent year-on-year for 2017, reaching a total of 11,985 tons. While automotive demand stalled, demand for general industrial applications was solid. Increased demand was seen for applications such as semiconductor manufacturing equipment, injection molding machines, machine tools and industrial robots. Looking...
Sumitomo Riko Co. Ltd. (TYO:5191) has held a ceremony to formally mark the start of construction on a new R&D center. The facility will be established under SumiRiko AVS Germany GmbH, a subsidiary devoted to the R&D and sales of anti-vibration rubber for vehicles and based in Hesse, Germany. Under construction with a budget of approximately 10 million euros ($11.62...
