4.Tonan Sangyo Co., Ltd. (Taiwan under Japan)

1. History

Our company’s business location was established in 1911 by Mitsubishi Paper Mills, a joint-stock company that was the predecessor of Mitsubishi Paper Mills Co., Ltd., for the purpose of producing bamboo pulp. Therefore, it is still widely known in Taiwan as Mitsubishi Taiwan Bamboo Forest Office. In January 1932, the company was renamed Tonan Sangyo Joint Stock Company, headquartered in Douliu Street, Douliu Town, Tainan Prefecture, and continued to be under the control of Mitsubishi Paper Mills, but on November 1, 1936, the Company acquired it and held its shares. The company was reorganized as Tonan Sangyo Co., Ltd., and with a fully paid-up capital of 600,000 yen, it was decided to expand its traditional agriculture and forestry business. The company currently has a total of 30 people and 18 employees, including the officers below.

President Masaharu Sakamoto

Managing Director Sadakichi Aikawa

Director (and) Manager Yoshiyuki Ogasawara

Director Shin Kimizuka

Director Masaru Yamaguchi

Auditor Yoshinobu Kashima

Audit & Supervisory Board Member Hiroshi Okato

2. Business overview

The headquarters and tung oil factory are located on Douliu Street, but the business area is centered around the Laoshui Tank branch office and spreads north and south across the two prefectures of Taichung and Tainan, with a total area of about 14,000 hectares in a mountainous area, with Qingshui River flows through the center to the north. If you take a train south from Taipei, you will arrive at Douliu Station in about 6 hours. The mountainous area that towers far to the east from the train window near Douroku Station is the business site of Tonan Sangyo. The majority of the project area is bamboo forest, with a total area of 8,200 hectares, and the beautiful dripping green forests of Katsura bamboo, Bei bamboo, mainly Moso bamboo, Guan bamboo, and Nagashi bamboo, continue on a gentle slope. The view is a beauty that cannot be seen in the mainland. Currently, the annual production of bamboo material has reached approximately 1.8 million or more, and along with bamboo shoots, it is primarily a source of livelihood for local people. However, a project that focuses on bamboo materials is not what the current situation demands, so while researching ways to improve the use of bamboo materials, we decided to select a suitable site, cultivate bamboo, and clear the site to make full use of it as farmland and forest land. In other words, the land on the right is planted with cinchona, oil tung, cedar, broadleaf cedar, Taiwanese paulownia, and single-layer lumber, as well as paddy fields, and general field cultivation where possible to increase food production, and cultivation of Assam black tea in suitable areas. We are already making steady progress toward this plan. The area of conventional afforestation land is about 2,200 hectares, and the main trees are oil tung, pine, cedar, broad-leaved cedar, and Soshi trees, but Soshi trees are already in the harvesting period and sold along with longan for charcoal, and other trees are being thinned as needed and made available to the general public. Other useful plants are also planted, such as teak wood for special purposes, teak wood for special purposes, wattle for simple harvesting, delis for anthelmintic materials, and cinchona for medicinal materials. In addition, from last year, due to the current situation of resource development, we have started cutting down 10,000 pine trees in the project area every year and collecting pine resin.

(a) Tung oil

The oil tung tree that dominates our afforestation efforts is the Chinese variety, with a planted area of approximately 1,000 hectares.　Currently, the demand for tung oil as an essential paint material for industry is increasing rapidly, but imports of Chinese tung oil have been cut off. It became the darling of the times. Our tung oil is an excellent product that surpasses that produced in China in terms of refractive index and all other specifications, and its production volume varies from year to year, reaching approximately 450 kl of tung oil, which amounts to approximately 66 ton of tung oil. It accounts for about 80% of the main island’s production value. It is planned to gradually increase production in the future.

(b) Coffee

I n addition, the cultivation of Arabica coffee, which has been under trial production research for many years, has finally grown steadily in recent years, and this year we harvested about 12 tons, but from now on we will produce superior “domestic coffee” by increasing production and improving the preparation method. It has reached the point where it is possible.

The Assam black tea, which is native to India and has long been thought to be able to grow in the central and southern highlands of Taiwan, will continue to be cultivated in suitable locations at this project site, while also conducting research in consideration of sunlight, temperature, rainfall, and other natural conditions. However, it was concluded that it was possible to cultivate a considerable amount of land, so the tea industry was finally started. This Assam variety has a higher aroma and superior quality than the Darjeeling variety conventionally cultivated in the northern region, and our company has begun planting it in recent years through the mediation of the Governor-General’s Office and related authorities, and plans to construct a factory in the near future.