Hitachi plans hard drive plant

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies announced plans to construct a disk drive manufacturing center in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. Japan-based Hitachi plans to invest as much as US$500 million in the facility, which it plans to begin building this year. The center is scheduled to start production of 3.5-inch hard drives in late 2005. Hitachi currently has two manufacturing companies in Shenzhen, which will produce parts for hard drives.