Jan.05.2017

Happy New Year!

At the start of the new year, I would like to express my deep appreciation for your warm supports rendered to us last year.

Last year, Japanese economy showed signs of gentle recovery thanks to improvement in corporate earnings and in employment and income environment backed by the economic policy and other measures by Japanese government. However, Japanese economy remained uncertain though yen was back on the trend of depreciation after U.S. presidential election from highly appreciated yen’s level. The U.S. economy also showed gentle recovery, but those in China and other developing and natural resource-rich countries in Asia remained at a standstill.

As for the market conditions in 2016 of Toyo products, we enjoyed firm demands in Japan, mainly from the automobile industry. However, China and other Asian market environments were hard for us as the demands from the smartphone-represented IT and electronics industries were stranded. Regarding the U.S. and Europe markets, we were inundated with orders mainly from customers in the livingware and automobile sectors.

Now, I would like to take a look back on our business activities last year, which was a second year for our mid-term management plan, “TOYO-330.” According to the plan, we steadily boosted sales activities and strengthened production facilities to secure further orders.

In terms of sales efforts, we established an affiliate company incorporated in Taiwan which works as an advance base to enhance our sales activity in Asian region. We also reinforced our maintenance system in Mexico, so that servicing and technically supporting activities can be intensified in Mexico and its neighboring Middle and South American states.

With respect to production, we put a new assembly factory into operation for middle to large sized machines. The factory was built to cope with the demands for large sized machines which have increased in recent years.

Regarding our products, we expanded our Si-6 series Injection Molding Machines to the model Si-1300-6 having 1300 ton clamping force and put in the market in December. This new model is the largest-ever machine in our history. We also launched a new vertical series, the ET-Ⅱwith 80 ton and 100 ton clamping force respectively. We intend to expand the lineup of the ET-Ⅱseries from 40 ton to 150 ton. In terms of Die-casting Machine, we boosted our efforts to further improve the performance of the Fully Electric Die-casting Machine, the DsF series. In addition, we expanded our product range by adding new BD-V6EX series Hydraulic Die-casting Machine jointly developed with Ube Machinery Corporation, Ltd.

With cooperation of our distributers, we introduced above-stated new products and latest technologies at various exhibitions such as K-Show in Düsseldorf, Germany and Japan Die Casting Congress and Exposition in Yokohama, Japan.

In the new year of 2017, we need to closely watch how the economic policy of Trump administration of the U.S.A. and slow China economy affect the global economy. At any rate, in the final year of the 3-year mid-term management plan at Toyo, we continue to exploit new markets and customers with strengthened sales forces and increased commodity powers so that we can achieve our target of 30 billion yen of sales with 3 billion yen of operating profit. For that purpose, we continue to increase efficiency of our production facility we expanded last year. We also continue to strengthen our relationship with our domestic and overseas business partners, so that our business base can be solidified further.

As a dependable partner at your production site, we are determined to continue, in this new year too, to deliver products and technologies sought by each customer. We hope you could render us warm supports as ever.

We wish you happiness and continued prosperity for the new year of 2017.