Chemical maker Showa Denko K.K. said Wednesday its consolidated pretax profit in 2004 jumped 63.2 percent from the previous year to a record 38.91 billion yen as sales grew 7.4 percent to 740.71 billion yen.
Petrochemical exports to China grew while hard disks and other electronics products sold well, the company said.
Despite the pretax profit jump, Showa Denko said group net profit for the year fell 26.4 percent to 7.60 billion yen due to a special loss of 11.8 billion yen on real estate holdings, which resulted from the firm's introduction of accounting for impairment of assets.