"...Japanese electronic parts maker TDK Corp said on Wednesday it would incur an extra cost of 3.7 billion yen ($30 million) in the year to March 2001 partly due to lay-offs at its U.S. plants. TDK plans to cut its work force to 250 from 580 at its plants in California and Georgia as those plants wind up production of audio and video tapes and CD-R disks by April 30 and start output of electronic parts, a TDK spokesman said.

Its audio and video tapes and CD-R disk business is in the red due to weakening market prices and the company plans to outsource their production to cut costs. The company will also stop making video tapes at its Thailand unit, which will focus on audio cassette tapes, he said. TDK also plans to stop making CD-R disks at its Chikumagawa plant in Nagano prefecture, central Japan and more than halve output of video tapes at its Mikumagawa plant in Oita prefecture, southern Japan to 1.8 million units a month.

The company will outsource production to cover the loss, reducing its own production ratio in its total sales to 60 percent from 100 percent, the spokesman said without disclosing which companies will supply TDK. In morning trade, shares in TDK were up 4.53 percent to 7,850 yen in line with the benchmark Nikkei average's 3.11 percent gain..."