100 Stories1960 First Technology Export, Bringing Rayon to India

Asahi Kasei has been implementing technologies from overseas, developing them, and making them its own. When looking into Asahi Kasei’s history, rayon was both the first technology the company implemented and exported.

Rayon was brought in from Germany by the founder, Shitagau Noguchi, and it is Asahi Kasei’s foundation. In 1921, Noguchi obtained a license for manufacturing rayon from Glanzstoff in Germany and started a rayon business in Asahi Fabric.

Rayon was the start of Asahi Kasei. Later on, the company took on new challenges one after another, developing other businesses, such as the Bemberg™ regenerated fiber, Cupro, and the food business. In 1960, at the same time Saran Wrap™ was developed, rayon became the first technology export.

Aiming to liberalize the trade of fabrics, such as cotton as outlined in the Liberalization Plan for Trade and Foreign Exchange made by the Government of Japan, this project was designed to increase Asahi Kasei’s presence through exporting manufacturing technologies and starting local production instead of producing the products in Japan.

Rayon was first exported to Baroda Rayon in India. Not long after its independence, India was planning to achieve self-sufficiency in rayon as part of its efforts to promote industrialization. In this project, Asahi Kasei, Shin Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Mitsubishi Shoji cooperated to build the plants. This was the first time for a Japanese fabrics company to assist in building fabrics plants in another company.

Shin Mitsubishi Heavy Industries took on the task of manufacturing each plant’s main machinery and equipment, and Mitsubishi Shoji was responsible for buying them all at once and exporting them to India. Asahi Kasei was in charge of planning the plants and supervising the construction and the production operations in the newly built plants.

Regarding the locals’ thoughts on the product, the employees dispatched on site said, “Asahi’s yarn has received great feedback. We’re happy even if they were exaggerating a little.” Compliments aside, the fact that yarn with quality as great as that of Asahi’s yarn was produced in Baroda Rayon was the best demonstration of its quality.

Surrounded by American and Swiss technologies, this exhibited the quality of the product that was created with the technical support of the yarn manufacturer Asahi Kasei itself.

The plants were built on a 1,155,000m² land. This was considered a huge scale—about double the area of Asahi Kasei’s rayon plant. The plants were quickly built and were expected to start producing yarn a year and a half after groundbreaking.

During this period, tens of executives from Baroda Rayon visited Japan and learned about the stock solution, spinning, and the finishing touches over three months in Nobeoka, and trained employees in their parent company, National Rayon. Asahi Kasei continued to supervise operations for three months after the yarn production started, providing full support and receiving great feedback.

The rayon technology export project was a first of its kind in Japan. It also gained a lot of attention from overseas thanks to the direct supervision Asahi Kasei provided as a yarn manufacturer, which was also not common overseas. Asahi Kasei stopped manufacturing rayon in 2001, but Baroda Rayon is currently still manufacturing it.