Toshiba restarts production at Thai flood-hit semiconductor factory

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Toshiba has temporarily resumed production at its semiconductor factory in Thailand, a year after flooding devastated several of its production facilities in the region.

The electronics manufacturer said production restarted at its Pathumthani factory in Thailand earlier this month and products will start shipping imminently.

"Resumption of production at the older facility positions Toshiba to respond to growing demand for discrete devices...especially demand for smartphones and tablet PCs," said Toshiba in a statement.

However, production at the site looks set to be relatively short-lived, as the firm is opening a new factory in Purachinburi, which is outside of the Thai flood plain, in Spring 2013.

Toshiba said the cost of opening a new factory had been covered by the firm's flood insurance and should not affect its bottom line.

The Pathumthani site was one of several Toshiba factories to be hit hard by the Thai floods, which blighted the country in October 2011.

Caroline Donnelly is the news and analysis editor of IT Pro and its sister site Cloud Pro, and covers general news, as well as the storage, security, public sector, cloud and Microsoft beats. Caroline has been a member of the IT Pro/Cloud Pro team since March 2012, and has previously worked as a reporter at several B2B publications, including UK channel magazine CRN, and as features writer for local weekly newspaper, The Slough and Windsor Observer. She studied Medical Biochemistry at the University of Leicester and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Magazine Journalism at PMA Training in 2006.