Toray Industries, Inc. (head office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President: Akihiro Nikkaku; hereinafter referred to as “Toray”) today announced that the company and its subsidiary Toray Advanced Materials Korea, Inc. (head office: Seoul, Republic of Korea; President & CEO: Kim Sang-pil; a 100% subsidiary of Toray, hereinafter referred to as “TAK”) would expand the production facility for high-performance polypropylene spunbond (hereinafter referred to as “PP spunbond”) at P.T. Toray Polytech Jakarta (head office: Tangerang, Republic of Indonesia; President: Lee Young-kwan; hereinafter referred to as “TPJ”) by 18,000 tons per year.
After the enhancement, the production capacity of TPJ will be about 37,000 tons per year, boosting the Toray Group-wide PP spunbond production capacity to about 153,000 tons per year. The added production facility at TPJ is expected to start operating in September 2016.
Demand for disposable baby diapers is forecast to rapidly grow in ASEAN countries with the improvement in the people’s lifestyle, as their national income increases. In addition, demand for disposable diapers for elderly is expected to expand in developed and semi-developed countries in East Asia due to the advent of declining birthrates and aging societies. Under such circumstances, demand for PP spunbond, which is the main material for making disposable diapers, is expected to grow to 660,000 tons per year in 2016 from 493,000 tons in 2013 and to 936,000 tons per year in 2020.
In response to this robust demand, Toray Group has been expanding the production capacities of its PP spunbond production bases in Korea, People’s Republic of China and Indonesia in advance. In June 2013, TPJ’s first facility started operations, and the Group’s production base in China, Toray Polytech (Nantong) Co., Ltd. (headquarters: Nantong, Jiangsu province, China; Chairman: Lee Young-kwan; hereinafter referred to as “TPN”), will start operation of a new production line later this month.
Toray Group will enhance its PP spunbond supply structure based on the three bases in Korea, China and Indonesia and build firm relationships with global hygiene product manufacturers in order to drive forward sales expansion in emerging markets such as in rapidly growing China and ASEAN countries as well as in the growth fields.
Under the medium-term management program “Project AP-G 2016” launched in April 2014, Toray Group has been working on the Asia, America and Emerging Country Business Expansion (AE-II) Project in pursuit of business expansion of growth countries and regions continuously from the previous medium-term management program. In addition, the Group also started working on the Life Innovation Business Expansion (LI) Project under the current management program to contribute to improvement in quality of medicine, reduction of burden at medical scenes and people’s health and long life.
The decision to enhance the PP spunbond production capacity in Indonesia is being implemented as one of the basic strategies to capture the growths in Asia and emerging countries in other regions that are expected to register significant economic growth as well as the growth in fields related to health and long life. Toray will continue to actively promote business expansion so as to leverage the power of materials to contribute to the society.
