Sumitomo Chemical sales down 12% in nine-month

 Sumitomo Chemical’s Health & Crop Sciences section sales for the nine months ended December 31, 2012, were ¥ 170,248 millions ($1,966 million), a decrease 12% compared with the same period of the previous fiscal year. Operating income was down by 49% to ¥8,912 million($103 million). Health & Crop Sciences segment includes crop protection chemicals, fertilizers, feed additives, household and public hygiene insecticides, and active pharmaceutical ingredients and intermediates.
 
In the area of crop protection chemicals, shipments of herbicides remained strong in an overseas markets, but sales declined due to seasonal effects caused by a change in an overseas subsidiary’s fiscal year to the end of March from the end of December.Shipments of pharmaceutical chemicals and the long-lasting insecticidal mosquitonet, Olyset® Net, decreased due to lower demand. Market prices of the feed additive methionine declined.