OREANDA-NEWS. Sharp held a grand opening ceremony of its new plant based in Karawang, Indonesia.

This new plant started mass production of washing machines from September 2013 and refridgerators from October 2013, and is scheduled to be in full operation by the end of March 2015. Production capacity on a monthly basis at full operations will be 220 thousand units for refridgerators and 140 thousand units for washing machines, both mainly to be supplied to meet the local demands.

Guests including Mr. Mohamad Hidayat, Minister of Industry, and Mr. Junji Shimada of the Japanese Embassy in Indonesia attended the ceremony together with members from Sharp including president Kozo Takahashi, CEO of Asia Pacific Noboru Fujimoto, and president of P.T. Sharp Electronics Indonesia Fumihiro Irie.

President Takahashi explained that Sharp has announced in its Medium- Term Management Plan last May that the expansion of global business centering the ASEAN region is one of Sharp's major action plans. With the start of operations at this Karawang Plant, Sharp would like to enforce our business expansion in the ASEAN region.

The domestic demands in the Indonesian market are showing a healthy growth, and Sharp will correpond to the expected growing demands for home appliances in the area.