Mitsubishi Electric Corp. plans to slash capital spending on semiconductor operations for fiscal 2001 by about 10 billion yen, company officials said Thursday.

In April, the company had planned to spend 80 billion yen in the current fiscal year but decided to reduce that amount to counter rapid deterioration in the semiconductor market, the officials said.

The cutback plan includes a one-year postponement of construction of a new chip plant in Kochi Prefecture, which was slated to begin by the end of this year.

The company also decided to shelve plans to boost production capacity of flash memory chips at its plant in Kumamoto Prefecture.