Asahi Glass Co., Ltd. (Head Office: Tokyo; President & CEO: Masahiro Kadomatsu) will establish Electronics & Energy General Div., effective on July 1, 2005, through the reorganization of Electronic Materials and Products General Div., part of Chemicals Company, and part of subsidiary Asahi Techno Glass Corporation.

Asahi Glass has developed its electronics and energy materials operations, considering it as the third mainstay in the Group vision, "Look Beyond". To this end, the company has narrowed down the number of themes for research and development in the course of establishing the R&D system. In the medium-term management plan, "JIKKO-2007," which was launched during the current fiscal year, Asahi Glass is putting the emphasis on the following four fields that the electronics and energy materials operations comprises: semiconductor process materials, display materials, photonics components, and energy materials. Under the plan, Asahi Glass also aims to further consolidate the business foundation for the electronics and energy materials operations while expanding the operations on a full-scale basis. Specifically, Asahi Glass is going to turn Asahi Techno Glass into a wholly owned subsidiary on July 1, 2005, and is constructing R&D facilities for developing advanced technologies to mass-produce electronics and energy related materials and components, within its Keihin Plant that is scheduled to be completed by February 2006.

In the past, the group had no centralized organization handling the electronics and energy related businesses, and such operations had been spread out among the Electronic Materials and Products General Div., the Chemicals Company, and Asahi Techno Glass Corporation. Hence, the group had suffered from inefficient marketing activities in the electronics and energy field.
   Therefore, the group has decided to set up the Electronics & Energy General Div., by integrating electronics and energy related businesses in the group and thus clearly designating the main operator of the businesses, aiming to accurately recognize customers' diverse needs to conduct operations quickly and flexibly. With the new general division, the group intends to further strengthen earnings power of the electronics and energy materials operations. To help achieve this, the group will maximize the synergies created through the establishment and integrated management of optimum systems for development, production and sales. Moreover, it hopes to leverage the synergistic effects from the integration of glass and fluorine chemistry technologies---a prime strength of Asahi Glass. Upon establishing the Electronics & Energy General Div., the precursors (the Electronic Materials and Products General Div.) will cease to exist.

During the "JIKKO-2007" period, the group will invest about 55.0 billion yen in the electronics and energy related operations (10% of the group total), and appropriate approximately 35.0 billion yen for R&D activities (35% of the group total). The group hopes to expand sales of the electronics and energy related operations from about 75.0 billion yen in fiscal 2004 to more than 100.0 billion yen around 2007 and over 200.0 billion yen in about 2010.

(Reference)
1. Organization chart of Electronics & Energy General Div.