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Taiwan aluminium firms output
JANUARY 24: Taiwan aluminium billet maker J King Aluminium Inc said it will raise output by 50 per cent in March, citing demand from bicycle manufacturing plants in mainland China as creating the opportunity to expand. Wei Ching Hwang, J King Aluminium general manager, said that the expansion would bring billet production to 9,000 tonnes per month from 6,000 tonnes after two new furnaces and casting pits come on stream. Taiwan's construction sector, a main aluminium user, remains mired in a long slump, but Hwang said local processors were boosting primary aluminium imports to meet demand for extrusions from Taiwan bicycle makers in rival China. ``Industrial aluminium end-users, such as bicycle makers, are demanding more of the metal. I think total primary ingot imports will increase,'' said Hwang. Hwang did not give an estimate for the island's primary aluminium imports in 2000, but trade sources said that in 1999, they totalled around 3,50,000 tonnes.. He said a large number of downstream aluminiumfabricators had moved operations to the communist mainland, Taiwan's political arch rival, taking advantage of lower labour and land costs, he added. Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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