NEC Corp, Japan’s largest maker of personal computers, said it will close its liquid-crystal-display (LCD) factory in southern Japan to bolster efficiency.
The factory in Kagoshima Prefecture, which employs 370 workers to make mid-size screens for medical and industrial displays, will close by Dec. 31, the Tokyo-based company said Wednesday. Output will be moved to NEC’s more advanced plant in Akita Prefecture in northern Japan, it said.
NEC said it will cut the workforce in the unit, NEC LCD Technologies Ltd, by 50 percent to 600 employees by March next year, as part of a plan to eliminate more than 20,000 employees in the period. The company in January forecast its biggest loss in seven years as the worsening recession damps demand for displays, mobile phones and semiconductors.
Current monthly production capacity at the two plants is 218,000 panels measuring 14 inches, the statement said. That level will be maintained after the consolidation in Akita, Joseph Jasper, an NEC spokesman, said yesterday by telephone.
The overall net loss will total ¥290 billion (US$2.94 billion) in the 12 months ending March 31, compared with a ¥22.7 billion profit a year earlier, NEC said in January. Sales will fall 9 percent to ¥4.2 trillion.
Shares of NEC yesterday rose 4 percent to close at ¥232 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
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