*NEWS*EPSON’S THAILAND BASE FOR WORLD

[Anonymous]

Epson creates Thailand base for world sales
 November  2005
Epson,
a Japanese printer manufacturer, has selected Thailand as a base to
produce inkjet printers for export. The firm late last week officially
launched the first shipment of printers made in Thailand to Indonesia.
According to Seiichi Hirano, the director and chief executive of the
imaging and information products division, the company has co-operated
with Muramoto Electron (Thailand), a Japan-based electronic appliance
manufacturer, to produce inkjet printers in Thailand under an original
equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreement.
“It’s the first time that
Epson has used Thailand as a production base. We see Thailand as a
leading electronic manufacturing base with component assembly and
logistical infrastructure, and this will help us speed up our
production operation,” Hirano said. Production started this month and
Epson expects that production capacity will reach 300,000 to 500,000
units next year.
Epson has production bases in many countries in
Asia including Indonesia, the Philippines and China. Indonesia is the
largest, producing one million inkjet and photo printers a month.
Thailand will become the fourth largest, following the Philippines and
China in the future.
Hirano said the Thai production facilities
would produce the CX4700 model. This model, which integrates printer,
photocopier and scanner into one, was launched only last month.
“All
the products produced here will be exported around the world and
branded as Epson, made in Thailand,” he added. The firm also plans to
expand the product line to cover other models in the future.
However,
as the production process is under an OEM agreement, Muramoto Electron
(Thailand), or Metco for short, has to invest in production facilities.
The company spent Bt1.1 billion to build all facilities for Epson
printer production.
Epson facilities have around 365 employees and
the factory plans to increase this to 1,800 by next April to serve
increased production targets

[Author]

November 23, 2005 at 10:33 AM