Taiwan's Major Oil-resistant Rubber Maker Nantex to Post 15% Revenue Growth in 2008

Taipei, June 16, 2008 (CENS)--Thanks to continuous price rises in oil-resistant rubber, Nantex Industry Co., Ltd., a Taiwanese supplier of rubber products, is expected to post a 15% growth in its annual revenue this year, according to industry sources.

Besides, Nantex has moved to set up new production lines of oil-resistant rubber at its China plant, and the new line is scheduled to be operational at the end of this year, which will hopefully pump significant growth momentum into the company's business operation next year.

Demand for oil-resistant rubber, key component for tires and auto parts, has explosively increased due mainly to the booming Chinese car market in recent years, causing prices of the products to shoot up.

Nantex is speeding up its capacity expansion at its China plant after setting up production lines of latex and oil-resistant rubber 2007, which contributed considerably to the company's profit performance in the year. Sales of oil-resistant rubber alone sharply grew 50% last year, and the company scored net profits of NT$3.04 per share in the year. This May, the company even posted a new high of NT$371 million in sales revenue.

Nantex has undertaken its fourth-stage capacity expansion in the plant this year and planned to integrate other lines to produce oil-resistant rubber. At the end of the year, the plant is expected to achieve annual capacity of 30,000 metric tons of the products from current 20,000 metric tons.

In the meantime, Nantex has ventured into production and development of TPV (thermophotovoltaics), and, despite losses, is still planning to improve production process and double monthly production capacity of the products to 600 metric tons this year from 300 metric tons.

Nantex stays confident of the prospect of TPV, noting that the product is environmentally-friendly and has been widely adopted by automakers in Japan, Korea and North America, and its business operation may turn profitable by the end of this year.

On the other hand, as domestic makers of shoes have moved their production abroad, Nantex has shut down one of its production lines of latex sheets for shoe soles and kept another two lines operational in Taiwan. Last year, sales of latex sheets contributed 13.4% to the company's total revenue, only behind that of latex and oil-resistant. However, the company has planned to gradually reduce contribution of the product in the future.