Seihoku Group and Gifu Prefecture have been conducting preparations on Mori no Gohan Kyodo Kumiai’s (Forests’ Plywood Cooperative Union) “Mori no Gohan Kojo (Forests’ Plywood Factory)” (Nakatsukawa City, Gifu Prefecture), and actual operations at the factory began on April 4, 2011.
The factory was planned as a factory that manufactures plywood using 100 percent domestic material and with the purpose of promoting the forest industry and creating jobs, and in January 2008, Seihoku Corporation, Gifu Prefecture, and Nakatsugawa City concluded an agreement concerning the location of the
factory. In December of 2008, a ground breaking ceremony was held, and construction has been taking place.
In December of last year, construction was completed, from January, trial operations began, and on March 2, the factory obtained the JAS certification. Operations were scheduled to begin from April 1.
However, due to the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, Seihoku’s Ishinomaki
Factory was damaged, and ten technicians, who were sent from the factory to Gifu, were busy confirming the safety and whereabouts of employees and family members, so the starting date of operations was changed to April 4. A ceremony, which was originally scheduled for April 1 and which was scheduled to welcome the governor of Gifu Prefecture and other guests, was cancelled, and only a press conference for the media was held.
In the future, an executive director said: “For the disaster recovery, we will manufacture a lot of plywood even if it means only one board” and responding quickly to the situation, full operations, which were scheduled
to start from autumn, were moved up as the executive director explained, “From May, we will aim at a 110 percent production system.” Along with newly hired employees from the region, 40 people will work at the factory including 16 technicians from the Ishinomaki Factory who lost their homes due to the disaster.
The site of the factory covers 9.8 hectares, and the floor area of the factory covers 3.5 hectares. As the first plywood factory in the country to be located in a mountain valley area, the amount of logs to be used annually
is about 100,000 m³. The kinds of wood to be used are cedar, cypress, and larch, and they will mainly be procured from within Gifu Prefecture.
The factory will be equipped with the latest rotary lathe. The monthly production capacity is about 8,000 m³ with estimates of 250,000 sheets of 12 mm 3×6 boards and 125,000 sheets of 24 mm per month. The tree bark and tree core remaining from the rotary lathe will be used as fuel for boilers or steam reconditioning and drying. 3×6 boards of 9 to 28 mm of thickness will be manufactured in meter standards, and boards will also be cut according to the requests of home builders.
Reports on economic forecast after Great Eastern Japan Earthquake
Yano Research Institute Ltd. (Tokyo) released results of its analysis of “Great Eastern Japan Earthquake: Economic Restoration Processes and Impacts on Major Industries in Japan” on April 4.
According the report, the construction sector in the first year after the disaster can be expected to be 167 percent or to increase ¥1.337 trillion in value compared to 2010, suppose the impacts on Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake on the various industries can be applicable to the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake.
It also says that gross prefectural production of the construction sectors in the five disaster-affected prefectures in four years after the disaster is estimated at least to exceed ¥12.200 trillion.
On the contrary, the market of wholesaling and retailing industries in fiscal 2011 will shrink 14 percent from the previous year, and will require long time to recover.
