Toshiba to delay NAND plant construction - paper

TOKYO, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp (6502.T) will likely delay the construction of a new memory chip plant in western Japan by half a year due to slow progress in land acquisition, the Nikkei business daily said, citing President Atsutoshi Nishida.

Toshiba said in February it and partner SanDisk Corp (SNDK.O) would invest a total $18.7 billion to build two NAND flash memory chip plants in Japan, in an effort to catch up with industry leader Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS).

Construction of the new plants -- one in Yokkaichi, western Japan and the other in Kitakami, northern Japan -- were scheduled to start next spring.

Nishida was quoted as saying that the Yokkaichi plant would be delayed by about six months while the company plans to take another look at the timing on the Kitakami plant, monitoring conditions in the memory chip market.

Toshiba and SanDisk plan to cut NAND flash memory production by 30 percent from January, as the global economic slowdown hits demand for the microchips used in digital cameras, mobile phones and portable music players. [ID:nT162487] (Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Kazunori Takada)