Toshiba reported in TCL tie-up

Toshiba Corp and Chinese appliance giant TCL International Holdings Ltd signed a comprehensive business cooperation agreement to make and market white goods, according to a Nihon Keizai Shimbun report. Described as one of the largest JV deals in China's white goods sector to date, the companies reportedly plan to spend around 5bn yen to build a factory in Foshan with a starting capacity of 1m units a year, beginning January 2006, with lines for 700,000 refrigerators and 300,000 washing machines. The deal calls for Toshiba controlling the manufacturing JV, TCL the marketing company. Financial details were not disclosed. Most goods will be branded Toshiba which has only 1% China market share and aims to raise that to 10%.