Thursday, Dec 16, 2010
TOKYO (Dow Jones)--Toshiba Corp. (6502.TO) said Thursday it will set up a liquid crystal display television manufacturing joint venture in Egypt with local partner El Araby Group, as the Japanese electronics maker looks to tap into demand in the Middle East and Africa.
The joint venture, Toshiba El Araby Visual Products Co., will be established in Cairo next month with a capitalization of $10 million, and the new plant will start production in March. Toshiba will hold 51% of the company and El Araby the remaining 49%.
El Araby currently makes TVs that are sold under the Toshiba brand in Egypt.
The new plant will initially have a capacity of 600,000 LCD TVs a year, but that will rise to 2 million units in the fiscal year through March 2014, Toshiba said.
Fast-growing markets in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America account for most of the rise in the global demand for liquid-crystal-display TVs, due partly to the continuing shift to flat-panel TVs from cathode-ray tube models.
-By Juro Osawa, Dow Jones Newswires; 813 6269 2794; juro.osawa@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
16-12-10 0531GMT
