from yesterday's Nikkei

半導体　東芝、８０００億円で新工場　四日市で建設再開　３年後、能力倍増
フラッシュメモリー　世界首位狙う

According to a source, Toshiba Corporation will build a new plant in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture for producing NAND-type flash memory,with a total of 800 billion yen invested over the period of three years beginning in fiscal 2010. This is a resumption of the plan frozen temporarily for some reason. After the completion of the new plant, the production capablity of the flash memory will become double the present. Toshiba intends to exceed the Korean Samsung Electronics, which now ranks first in the world in the field of this type of semiconductor production, and get the first-rank position in the global market at the time a few years ahead.

from today's Nikkei

鉄鋼用石炭　「四半期ごと値決め」通告　ＢＨＰなど　市況を素早く反映　製鉄各社難色　車・電機に波及も

According to souces concerned it is leaned that an Australia-based world-class resource company BHP Billiton has recently informed some of Japanese steel makers including Nippon Steel of its newly decided system of how it decides its wholesale prices of raw material products,in this case of coal,in which it intends to decide prices of coal for steel production quarterly,once every three minths, based on the market price.

Another company,Teck Resources,one of Canadian resource companies,also has followed the suit.

Japanese steel companies are likely to make clear their oppositions to these offers but there is no doubt they are forced into a very difficult situation.

In these circumstances,there will surely occur the possibility the steel price fluctuations will have a rippling effect, in the country, on the automobile and electric machinery industries.