Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – The Japanese producer may spend EUR 50m on a TV plant it wants to locate in Poland or the Czech Republic. Decision should be made till the end of August.
A new investment project connected with LCD TVs may be located in Poland.
“Toshiba is thinking about building an LCD TVs plant. It will make decision till the end of August”, an anonymous participant of the negotiations said.
The Japanese are interested in a site in south-western Poland. They have several areas to choose in, including around Wroclaw. Toshiba may invest alone or with partners from its IPS Alpha alliance, including Hitachi and Panasonic.
And that’s the problem for the Polish side. The three well-known producers, said in June this year that they would build an LCD monitor plant in the Czech Republic. The project is worth EUR 90m, 2,000 people are going to be employed. Construction works will be launched this year, production – 12 months later. It is going to be IPS Alpha’s second plant in the world. The first one is located in Japan.
“We are doing our best to talk Toshiba into investing in Poland but the fact that the elements for LCD TV sets will be produced in the Czech Republic is our disadvantage. We want to convince them that there are advantages in Poland as well”, a person close to the project said.
Toshiba could get LCD panels from LG.Philips LCD or Sharp.
Toshiba was founded in 1875 and today is headed by Atsutoshi Nishida. The company has 172,000 employees worldwide. Its capital amounts to USD 2.3 billion. The company is listed on three stock exchanges in Japan, and in London. In the last financial year ended March, the giant had USD 54.2 billion of sales and USD 668.3m of net income. In 2005, Toshiba founded IPS Alpha Technology with Hitachi Ltd and Matsushita Electric (the owner of Panasonic brand). IPS Alpha Technology focuses on the production of big LCD TVs.