Japanese trading house Itochu Corp. and Taiwanese electronic paper company E Ink Holdings Inc. have agreed to cooperate on a business using e-paper products in Japan and elsewhere.

The two companies will expand the e-paper business, such as electronic signages, electronic shelf labels and electronic logistic tags, by using the global networks of Itochu and the Itochu group, the Japanese company said Monday.

They also plan to help clients build e-paper usage environments in accordance with their needs and promote companies' digital transformation.

The global e-paper market is expected to grow to some 1.5 trillion yen (US$13 billion) in 2025, increasing about 20 percent annually from approximately 500 billion yen in 2020, according to Itochu.

About 400 million units of electronic shelf labels and some 130 million electronic book devices have already been used, it said.

Itochu said that e-paper has helped reduce global emissions by a total of 2.37 million tons of carbon dioxide, noting that it requires very little power consumption.

E-paper has also drawn attention from the viewpoint of the United Nations' sustainable development goals, the company said. (NNA/Kyodo)

==Kyodo

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