Teijin Carbon Vietnam (TCV), part of Japan’s Teijin (Tokyo; www.teijin.com) has started manufacturing carbon fibre products, including prepeg – a fibre sheet pre-impregnated with matrix resin as an intermediate material for composites. The Vietnamese business was set up on 4 May 2019 to capitalise on the expanding demand for carbon fibre, while also strengthening Teijin’s global business capabilities.

Initially, TCV will produce carbon fibre materials for sports and outdoor activities, including fishing, golf, bicycle and ice hockey goods for markets in South and Southeast Asia as well as Asia-Pacific. Demand is growing in the region, partly boosted by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has stimulated interest in activities that are compatible with social-distancing protocols.

Teijin said increasingly strict environmental measures and frameworks such as sustainable development goals (SDG) and the Paris Agreement are also expected to stimulate greater use of lightweight and highly rigid carbon fibre.