Japanese Bearing Maker Plans Production Expansion

Japanese Bearing Maker Plans Production Expansion Japanese Nippon Roballo Co, a wholly-owned subsidiary of German large-diameter anti-friction bearings maker Rothe Erde GmbH, will build a plant in Kitakyushu in south of Japan. With a total investment of around 4.5 billion yen (about US$38.8 mln), the 15,000-square-meter plant built on a 23,000-square-meter plot will allow Nippon Roballo to rise its annual output from about 3,200 tonnes of large-scale bearings currently to 9,000 tonnes from October 2008, when production kicks off at the new plant. Output of the new facility will be supplied to Japanese makers of wind power generators, against a background of growing wind power equipment demand in Europe, the United States, China and India.