Chuo Denki's roots lie in a hydroelectric power generator founded in the Joetsu region of Niigata prefecture in 1906, a development that led to the Joetsu region flourishing as an electrochemicals cluster. After a series of operational consolidations and mergers, CDK emerged in 1934 as a producer of chemicals and ferroalloys in Myoko, where we maintain our head office to this day. Over the years since, CDK officers and employees have devoted extraordinary efforts to growing the business. I would like to take this opportunity to express our great respect for their tremendous efforts and our deep gratitude to all our stakeholders for their exceptional support, assistance and leadership.

It is thanks to them that CDK has now expanded to the three core businesses of ferroalloys, environmental services and functional materials, with production operations in Osaka and Wakayama as well as Myoko and Kashima.

Our Kashima plant in Ibaraki prefecture produces manganese ferroalloys and provides environmental services. Ferroalloy operations maintain international competitiveness with a stable, low-cost production and sales structure by relying primarily on the use of night-time power tariffs to produce the manganese ferroalloys that are indispensable to the steel industry.
In the environmental services business we have exploited the technologies and know-how developed in ferroalloys to launch in 1995 Japan's first private-sector incinerator ash melting operation. CDK now operates two pre-existing ferroalloy furnaces and two dedicated ash-melt furnaces in a waste melting and recycling center, where we process industrial waste and incinerator ash from municipal waste in our contribution to detoxification.

Our Myoko plant in Niigata prefecture is the locus of our functional materials business operations, comprising hydrogen storage alloys and manganese chemical products.
Used as the material for negative electrodes in nickel-metal-hydride cells, our hydrogen storage alloys function as a store of electrical energy in the form of hydrogen. Such nickel-metal-hydride batteries are gaining prevalence and wider use as the secondary batteries in environmentally-friendly hybrid vehicles.
Our leading manganese chemical products are manganese sulfates, manganese carbonates and advanced manganese dioxides. These have a wide range of applications and are used in livestock feeds, platings, electronic component additives, deodorants, and the positive electrodes of lithium-ion cells.

In order to enhance and expand our functional materials business, in December 2009 CDK acquired the graphite operations (located in Osaka and producing material for the negative poles of lithium ion batteries) of Sumitomo Metal Industries, Ltd., the company's largest shareholder. At the same time CDK also completed a full takeover of the Sumitomo Metal consolidated subsidiary Sumikin Molycorp, Inc. (located in Wakayama and producing magnet alloy material for the negative poles of lithium ion batteries), renaming the firm Chuden Rare Earth Co.,Ltd. to launch it on a new start. With these acquisitions the materials supply business in the two key environmental technologies of secondary batteries and motors that had been scattered about the Sumitomo Group are now consolidated and integrated under CDK and poised to meet wide-ranging customer needs going forward by expanding confidently into the automobile and consumer products markets. With solid support from Sumitomo Metals' deep R&D resources, we will be working to grow and expand these businesses while realizing synergies in production, engineering and sales.

Our goal remains to gain the confidence of all CDK stakeholders and contribute to social prosperity as a small firm, but an independent and prominent one upholding our own role within the Sumitomo Group.

CHUO DENKI KOGYO CO.,LTD. Ryo Someya President