Spotlight: Another major Japanese manufacturer mired in data falsification scandal

TOKYO, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- Japan's Toray Industries, Inc., a major chemical fiber manufacturer, said on Tuesday that one of its subsidiaries had falsified inspection data for over eight years, dealing another blow to the reputation of the scandal-hit Japanese manufacturing industry.

Akihiro Nikkaku, President of Toray Industries, Inc. told a press conference that the company's wholly-owned subsidiary Toray Hybrid Cord Inc., had falsified data for tire cord fabric and other products for eight years since April 2008.

"I'm profoundly sorry for causing so much trouble," said Nikkaku.

According to Toray, two of the subsidiary company's senior employees in charge of quality inspection doctored the data between April 2008 and July 2016 to meet the the standards of quality promised to customers.

The company has identified 149 data fabrication cases, and products with falsified data have been delivered to 13 companies, including tyre and auto parts makers, said Toray.

The company, meanwhile, denied that the data falsification had raised any safety issue, though investigations to 137 other suspicious cases are still going on.

A committee formed by outside experts has been set up to investigate into the issue in an attempt to deliver a report to the government by the end of the year, according to Toray.

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has ordered Toray to find out the cause of the misconduct and to prevent the misconduct from happening again.

Nikkaku told reporters that the misconduct was first detected in July 2016 and came to his notice in October in the same year.

He said that the company would not have made public the matter if similar data fabrication cases at Kobe Steel had not come to light, claiming that the misconduct "did not breach the law or cause safety issues."

The company also denied that its senior management was involved in the malpractice.

Toray is a leading Japanese textile maker, with business revenue in fiscal 2016 achieving 2.264 trillion yen (20.34 billion U.S. dollars) and net profit 99.4 billion yen (892.81 million U.S. dollars).

The company is a major supplier of carbon fiber for U.S. aircraft maker Boeing Co. and also provides core materials for Uniqlo's well-known Heattech clothing line.

Toray's stocks plunged 8 percent following announcement of the misconduct and closed down 5.3 percent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Tuesday.

The incident, coming on the heels of data falsification improprieties at Mitsubishi Materials Corp. and Kobe Steel Ltd., and uncertified safety checks carried out by Nissan Motor Co. and Subaru Corp. which led to extensive recalls, dealt another blow to the reputation of Japanese manufacturing industry. Enditem