UACJ has ambitious plans for Thailand
UACJ Group, Japan's largest aluminium manufacturer and the world's third-largest, yesterday announced the official opening of its wholly-owned aluminium rolling plant in Rayong, which is the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, built at a cost of Bt21 bil
The plant started operations in August this year with annual capacity of 200,000 tonnes to be achieved in 2017. The Rayong plant will supply 33 per cent of its aluminium rolling capacity to the Thai market, while 67 per cent will be exported to major markets around the world in Asean, Asia, the Middle East, India and Africa.
The Rayong plant employs 700 people of whom 600 are Thais and 100 are Japanese. The number of Japanese staff will be gradually reduced and be replaced by Thai staff.
Mitsuru Okada, president and CEO of UACJ Corporation, said the company is also considering additional investment to its aluminium rolling facility in Rayong to increase annual capacity to approximately 300,000 tonnes in 2020.
Akinori Yamahuchi, president of UACJ (Thailand), said that Thailand has good infrastructure, including supplied industrial estates and strong support industry, compared to neighbouring countries.
He added that the country also has a good location from a logistics point of view as a centre among the company’s major customers.
About 80 per cent of annual capacity at the Rayong plant will be for aluminium cans, 15 per cent for heat exchanger materials and the rest 5 per cent for closure sheets for beverage containers and others.
Okada said that UACJ Group was established in October 2013 when Furukawa-Sky Aluminium and Sumitomo Light Metal Industries merged their business operations. Both companies featured a distinguished history as aluminium producers in Japan. Together, their annual capacity for flat rolled products exceeded 1 million tonnes, making them the largest manufacturer in Japan and the third-largest in the world.
UACJ Group supplies aluminium products to more than 40 countries in a variety of forms to meet differing needs, including rolled, extruded, foil, cast and forged products, as well as processed and colour-coated products that use these items as raw materials.
The company also produces everyday items such as aluminium cans and automobile parts materials, to electronic and medical products, and even part materials for aircraft, electronic appliances, and air-conditioners.
At present, there are 42 companies under the group with total staff of 8,500 people. In response to the global market demand, UACJ has manufacturing bases worldwide. In the US, UACJ has set up a joint venture company with a leading aluminium rolling manufacturer.
Meanwhile, in China, the manufacturing base has been expanded in many regions to meet the growing demand of the local market. In Europe, UACJ is getting ready to meet the demand, especially in the automobile and printing industries. The ultimate goal of UACJ is to stay competitive, and be fully able to lead the world market as a major global aluminium group that is reliable to stakeholders from every part of the world, Okada said.
Okada added that UACJ Group has set up a mid-term global business plan, namely ‘Global Step I’, for the period 2015-17, to build the group’s business foundations in major markets around the world, and the opening of the Rayong plant is part of the business plan.
It has also initiated ‘Global Step II’ business plan for 2018-21, to focus on growth stimulus, and Global Step III, for 2022-25, to highlight on growth expansion, he said.
"We started with a team of 100 trainers from Japan to train the Thai employees since this was the first time for Thailand to have an aluminium rolling factory of this size. The training was difficult both in theory and in practice. But with endless effort from both sides, UACJ Thailand has successfully become our comprehensive manufacturing base. Our next step is to transfer Japanese technology to Thailand so it will be more competitive and become a global hub of the UACJ group in the near future," said Yamahuchi.
Yamahuchi added that Thailand is the first priority that plays an important role for the UACJ group to become a leader in the global competitive aluminium manufacturing industry.
"For Thailand, we have a production target of 300,000 tonnes. It will be further developed into a base that produces a variety of products that equal the manufacturing base in Japan. Besides, we are planning to open a research and development centre for aluminium products in Thailand, which will also be a centre for the Asean region. We believe that UACJ Thailand will play a pivotal part in developing Thailand’s industry into the global level," he said.
