Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), the nation’s largest plastics maker, yesterday said its board has approved a NT$5.37 billion (US$177.8 million) investment plan to build a new plant in Taiwan to expand production capacity for copper foil.
The project would satisfy growing global demand for lithium-ion batteries, one of the key components of electric cars, a Nan Ya investor relations official said by telephone.
As part of the company’s strategy to sustain higher gross margins, the new plant would mainly manufacture specialized products used in electric vehicles for clients in Europe and the US, the official said.
The plant would produce 18,000 tonnes of copper foil per year, raising the company’s annual capacity from 90,000 tonnes to 108,000 tonnes, he said.
Nan Ya, a major unit of Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), operates several copper foil plants in Chiayi County and Kunshan, company data showed.
The new plant, which would be built in Chiayi’s Singang Township (新港), is scheduled to start production in the second quarter of next year, Nan Ya said.
The company’s board yesterday also approved a plan to expand its production capacity of high value-added synthetic paper, a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange said.
The expansion is to cost NT$1.19 billion, raising the firm’s synthetic paper production capacity from 65,000 tonnes per year to 87,000 tonnes per year, Nan Ya said.
In the first quarter of this year, the plastics maker saw its net profit skyrocket 102.1 percent annually to NT$10.87 billion, or earnings per share of NT$1.37, attributed partly to undersupply problems in the global copper foil market.
Shares of Nan Ya yesterday fell 0.28 percent to NT$70.2 in Taipei trading. The stock has dropped 1.12 percent since the beginning of the year.
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