Toray Acquires Land for Composite Business Expansion

Toray Industries has announced plans to purchase approximately 400 acres of commercial land for future business expansion in South Carolina, USA.

The Toray group currently run a wide range of businesses in the United States, including fibres and textiles, plastic resins, films, carbon fibre composite materials and water treatment. The country is expected to maintain its industrial competitiveness on the back of the shale revolution and the resulting revival in manufacturing.

Toray see’s Shale as a key market for business expansion along with the high demands for advanced materials as seen in promotion of developing cutting-edge technologies in the aerospace, automotive and energy-related industries. In addition, the U.S.’s importance as an access point to Latin America, including Mexico and Brazil, whose economies are expected to grow in future is increasing.

The company plans to actively invest its management resources in the acquired land to make it its advanced material business base. In the carbon fibre composite material business, in which demand is expected to grow for high-performance, high-quality carbon fiber Torayca in aircraft and natural gas pressure vessel applications, Toray has already been considering a plan to newly build an integrated high-performance carbon fibre production facility that covers from raw material fibre (precursor) spinning to carbonisation as well as a production facility for Torayca prepreg. The company plans to accelerate the expansion of the business in the U.S. by making roughly 100 billion yen worth of investments by 2020.