Tokyo

Panasonic Corp. will drastically review operations unlikely to return to profitability, Kazuhiro Tsuga, president and chief executive officer at the Japanese electronics maker, said Friday.

“We are going to eradicate structural losses by fiscal 2021,” Tsuga told a press conference in Tokyo.

The company aims to get a 100-billion-yen contribution to its profit from the review of operations and other streamlining efforts, he said.

Of the total, 40 billion yen is expected to come from the review of loss-making operations, 30 billion yen from seeking operational efficiency, for example, by consolidating business bases, and 30 billion yen from cutting labor costs, he said.

Panasonic will also integrate production bases by region in China, he said.

On the company’s decision to discontinue its production of liquid crystal display panels, Tsuga said it reached the conclusion after judging that maintaining its competitiveness in the field would be difficult.

The plant making LCD panels in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture, western Japan, will focus on automotive batteries in the future, he said.

Panasonic also said it aims for an automotive battery company it will jointly set up with Toyota Motor Corp. to start operations around spring 2020.

In January, the two companies said they would establish the joint company by the end of 2020. It will be owned 51 percent by Toyota, with Panasonic to hold the rest.

Jiji Press