The Bloomberg news service, in a report posted on its site on March 25, says Teijin Ltd. plans to supply carbon fiber to Airbus Industrie (Toulouse, France) for the new A350 XWB, challenging market leader Toray Industries Inc.

“Our target is to have our carbon fiber used in the A350 as much as possible, hopefully 100 percent,� said Takashi Mishima, who becomes president of Teijin’s carbon-fiber unit Toho Tenax Co. next month.

Teijin is trying to to gain ground on Toray, which is the exclusive supplier of carbon-fiber composites for The Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliner, a competing model of the A350. Toho Tenax plans to expand carbon-fiber production to catch up with demand from builders of commercial planes and industrial equipment.

Toho Tenax’s carbon fiber is used in support beams in the upper deck of the Airbus A380, which started commercial flights in October. The A350 will use carbon fiber composites for 52 percent of its weight, twice as much as for the A380. The A350 is due to fly in 2013, about four years after the Dreamliner.

According to the report, Toho Tenax will announce later this year plans to expand capacity to make carbon fiber, Mishima said. Building production facilities or lines at the premises of existing plants in Germany, the U.S., or factories operated by Teijin in southwestern Japan are being considered.