Hitachi, Matsushita venture to invest Y80 bn

TOKYO - A liquid crystal display venture between Hitachi Ltd. and

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. said on Wednesday it would invest about 80

billion yen ($713 million) to double output capacity at a Japan plant to 5

million units by the second half of 2007/08.

The venture, IPS Alpha Technology Ltd., in which Toshiba Corp. also has a

stake, currently has a production capacity of 1.6 million units and had already

said it would lift that to 2.5 million units by January 2007.