Samsung to Close German TV Tube Plant

South Korea's Samsung SDI said Thursday it would shut down a conventional TV or cathode ray tube (CRT) production plant in Germany at the end of this year, citing shrinking demand and growing losses in Europe. The display-panel maker said 750 jobs would be lost in the closure of the Berlin plant, SDIG. "Since the CRT TV market in Europe is shrinking drastically every year, heavy losses are anticipated if we keep operating the German plant," said SDIG President Kim Dong-Sik. "The closure was inevitable." SDIG, which was established in 1993, employs about 1,000 workers. Samsung SDI officials in Seoul said 750 workers would lose their production line jobs. Research and development and sales and marketing activities in Germany would continue. "Terms and conditions on the proposed layoffs are still in negotiation," Samsung SDI official Bok Nari said in Seoul. Samsung SDI said the European CRT market is rapidly shrinking with demand shifting to flat panel televisions, sending prices falling sharply and profitability sliding. Also toughening the market is a surge in imports from low-priced CRTs from China and India, while labor costs in Germany are four times higher than in eastern Europe. SDI has a CRT plant in Hungary. Samsung SDI said its German operation's CRT sales have dropped steadily in recent years, from 304 million euros ($371 million) in 2002 to 229 million euros in 2004.