IPS Alpha Technology, a joint venture founded by Hitachi, Matsushita, and Toshiba, recently announced it will expand its LCD panel production capacity with an investment of 80 billion Yen. The company stated that it will invest 68 billion Yen to build a new production line at its Chiba plant in Japan, with an attempt to raise its annual production capacity there to an amount equivalent to about five million 32-inch panels by the second half of the fiscal year 2007, which runs until March 2008.

The company also stated that the remaining 12 billion Yen will be spent on constructing a new LCM plant in the Czech Republic, which is slated to start operations in the second half of fiscal 2007.