motor manufacturing facility in Vietnam on Sept. 22, aiming to meet the
rising demand for high-efficiency, environmentally friendly motors.
The opening ceremony of the new production facility at the Amata
Industrial Park in southern Dong Nai province was attended by Deputy
Minister of Industry and Trade Hoang Quoc Vuong.
Toshiba Industrial Products Asia Co Ltd, Toshiba Corporation's Vietnam
subsidiary, began constructing the factory in April 2009 on
approximately 80,000sq.m of land. The completed facility has a floor
area of 24,000sq.m.
"We have set a target of
manufacturing 1.2 million motors a year by 2015, and expect a turnover
of 400 million USD," said Norio Sasaki, president and CEO of Toshiba
Corporation.
The alarm over global warming has
spurred demand for high-efficiency motors that consume less power and
emit less CO2, Sasaki said.
"The effect in reducing
CO2 discharge of 1.2 million high-efficiency industrial motors is around
200,000 tonnes, equivalent to planting 14 million trees," he said.
The plant expects to employ around 500 people when it operates at maximum capacity.
The manufacture of high-efficiency industrial motor requires many
materials including metal and plastic that the company can source from
the domestic market.
"Toshiba hopes to cooperate and use products of Vietnamese supporting industries," Sasaki said.
At present, the ratio of domestically-produced materials and
components is 33 percent, and they plan to increase this to 70 percent,
according to Norihiro Tsujioka, general director of Toshiba Industrial
Products Asia.
The current output of the new plant
is 7,000 motors, for which it employs 150 local employees. It expects to
increase its operating hours from the current eight hours a day to 16
hours by December, and 24 hours by next year.
The
manufacture and sale of motors meeting higher levels of efficiency than
current regional standards are expected to become mandatory in the
United States in December this year, and other governments are expected
to follow suit, Tsujioka said./.
