Message from the president

I would like to heartily thank our customers for their loyal patronage.

For more than 90 years, Krosaki Harima has supported Japan’s key industries including the iron-and-steel industry through the manufacture and sale of refractories. At the same time, we have pursued some of the various potentials of ceramics by venturing into a fine ceramics business which is based on our refractories manufacturing technology. Furthermore, we have entered a building materials business which aims to offer more comfortable and beautiful life spaces.

Though our operation experienced a number of difficulties through that period, we managed to overcome each of them thanks to the cooperation of our customers who enjoy our products and also thanks to our Innovative endeavors. One of these was our business goal, “Provide No. 1 value for customers worldwide,” which has driven us to keep developing and improving our commodity technology and manufacturing know-how to maintain our world-leading level. Another endeavor was our overseas production and sales, an area in which we were ahead of the times. We now have investments in 17 overseas companies. The third endeavor was our thorough streamlining which has resulted in an overall 60% consolidation of our plants.

However, the business environment continues to change rapidly. In particular, the stagnation of growth in domestic demand is pronounced. On the other hand, the production and sales of steel and refractory products are exploding in BRICS countries including China, Brazil, and India. Furthermore, the supply of raw materials for refractories is tight relative to demand and there are security problems involved with their purchase.

In order to respond to these changes in the business environment, the company is vigorously advancing two action programs in accordance with the 9th Mid-Term Management Plan. One is a survival action program, which involves thorough streamlining, overall improvement of productivity in every operation, and cost reduction. To that end, new approaches are being invented and implemented to select and consolidate production and products. The second is a growth action program, in which we enhance solutions for customers in Japan to achieve sustainable growth, while expanding production and sales in China, India, and North and South America and capturing increasing demands, and venturing into new business areas such as heat-insulators.

With these actions we aspire to become a highly profitable enterprise with world-leading technology and scale in the high-grade refractories field and to persistently challenge ourselves.

Your continued support and encouragement will be greatly appreciated.