Thank you for today. I am Teiji Koge, President of Sekisui Chemical. I'd like to go straight into my presentation and talk about the results for FY 2018 and plans for FY 2019. First are the results for FY 2018. The FX rate assumptions are shown here. Net sales increased, helped by new consolidations and the expansion of high-performance products in the automobile and transportation field. Increased sales of detached houses also contributed to the net sales increase. Operating income, on the other hand, decreased and fell short of the JPY 100 billion plan announced in January due to advanced fixed cost and higher raw material cost, which couldn't be covered by higher sales volume and mix improvement. The bottom line, on the other hand, recorded record highs for the sixth fiscal year.
Based on the results, we have decided to increase the period-end dividend by JPY 2 a share compared to plan. Hence, dividends per share for the year will be JPY 44 a share, an increase by JPY 4. The next page shows results by divisional company. Profits increased in the Housing and UIEP, Urban Infrastructure & Environmental Products Companies. The UIEP Company renewed record high earnings, operating income for the HPP, High Performance Plastics Company decreased due to the impact from the smartphone and automobile markets. As shown on the right, all divisional companies fell short of plan. The HPP Company was impacted by smartphone demand trends as well as the sudden deterioration of the automobile markets in China as well as Europe.
As for the Housing Company, although the renovation business was brisk, the new housing business was slightly affected by the concentration of construction at the end of the FY, and thus we were not able to achieve the planned unit sales of houses. In the UIEP Business, domestic general purpose products did not perform well. Details will be explained later from each divisional company. Our first and second half results. Operating income decreased for the total company by JPY 3.8 billion in the first half of the year, owing to the impact of natural disasters. As for the second half, despite the challenging global market, we were able to grow the number of houses sold, improve profitability of the renovation business for the housing business, as well as grow sheet sales, in particular in the UIEP overseas Business.
On a total company basis, operating income grew by JPY 300 million, which was the highest ever for the second half. In the HPP Business, although high performance product sales grew throughout the FY, operating income declined year-on-year due to higher strategic fixed cost and high raw material prices that coincided with a sudden deterioration of the market. The Housing and UIEP Companies went back to positive operating income growth in the second half. Here is the analysis of results. The main reason for the deviance against plan was the shortfall in sales quantity and composition. The breakdown is shown in the box at the top right. The sudden drop-off in market conditions affected the HPP Business, and the number of houses sold fell short of plan slightly in Housing due to the year-end concentration. General purpose product sales struggled in Japan for UIEP.
Steps to control fixed costs on a group-wide basis were implemented, but results fell short of plan. Next is the plan for fiscal year 2019. The assumptions for FX rates are 110 yen to the dollar and 125 yen to the euro. Fiscal year 2019 will be the final year and the year that we finish off the medium-term management plan. We will strive for an increase in net sales and profits, with all levels of profits reaching record highs. The plan for net sales is JPY 1,175 billion and JPY 103 billion for Operating Profit. We are planning for an increase in dividends too, for the 10th consecutive year at JPY 46 per share. This page shows the plans by divisional company.
We are anticipating that the business environment will remain challenging overall, we will plan to secure increases in sales and profits across all segments by steadily carrying out measures which will be elaborated later. From this fiscal year, we will make the medical business independent from being a strategic field of the HPP Company to a strategic field under the control of corporate headquarters. We will accelerate growth strategies so as to develop the business into a fourth divisional company. Corporate headquarters' R&D spend will be concentrated on certain themes of focus, we will also accelerate the commercialization of projects. Now I'd like to explain about the outlook for market conditions, which we've considered quite in detail. These are the assumptions that were applied for the fiscal year 2019 plan. On the top left is the outlook for the smartphone market.
Our expectations are set slightly lower than market consensus by several percentage points. We expect the harsh market conditions to persist, by focusing on non-LCD and non-smartphone fields of business, we will continue to transform our portfolio. The divisional company president will elaborate later. Market consensus shows that global automobile production is going to be extremely challenging too, we are setting even more cautious expectations. Although we account for somewhat of a recovery in Europe from the latter half of the first half of the year, we assume a challenging market to persist in China. As for the environment for housing orders shown on the top right of the page, due to the consumption tax hikes, we anticipate that the business environment will become difficult going into the second half of the fiscal year.
Having said that, we have set order plans that exceed the market forecast in our growth strategy. naphtha price assumptions are at JPY 43,000. On the whole, we're expecting tough business conditions to persist throughout the fiscal year. Here are the plans by divisional company for the first and second halves. For the first half, with the assumptions that the harsh market conditions will continue for smartphones and automobiles, the profit plans for the HPP business is flat year-over-year. On the other hand, we expect growth in the number of houses sold due to the abundant order backlog in the first half, this is expected to be one of the main drivers of total company Operating Profit growth of JPY 800 million. As for the second half, we think that there will be a certain degree of improvement in the external and business environments globally.
The HPP Company is projected to lead the way with the new interlayer film line in Europe, starting operations and the realization of past strategic investments. All in all segments are forecasted for a profit increase, contributing to the JPY 6.5 billion operating income increase overall. For the full fiscal year, we plan for record high earnings in the HPP, UIEP, and medical businesses. Later on, the divisional company presidents will walk you through in detail how we are planning to achieve higher earnings in fiscal 2019. Here is the analysis of net sales and operating income. Fixed costs will increase mainly due to labor and depreciation cost. We plan to offset the increase with a substantial increase in sales quantity and composition through the HPP and housing businesses and will aim to achieve the JPY 7.3 billion profit increase, reaching JPY 103 billion.
Raw materials are expected to contribute positively too by JPY 2.4 billion. The next page shows shareholder return policies. We will continue to increase dividends steadily and implement measures designed to improve capital efficiencies, as we have committed in our medium-term management plan. We will increase dividends again in fiscal year 2019 by JPY 2 a share to JPY 46, and conduct share buybacks once again. The share repurchases will be up to 8 million shares or JPY 16 billion. The acquisition of shares will be through the market, including ToSTNeT, and will be implemented over the course of the year. We will also retire the acquired 8 million treasury stocks. Next is a progress update on the medium-term management plan. This fiscal year is the final year of the plan.
Looking at the plan for fiscal year 2019, despite net sales for the overseas business expected to grow in line with the medium-term management plan at JPY 300 billion, profit is expected to fall short. Main reasons are the shortfall of sales quantity and composition, as well as high raw material costs in the HPP business, and slightly higher material costs in the housing business. In addition, growth and renovation and the frontier businesses were delayed. One large factor for the deviation is that the medium-term plan was calling for an increase of 1,000 units of houses over the three-year period, whereas the plan now is to increase sales by 700 units instead, which is below plan by 300. The UIEP Company is struggling with general purpose product sales. Fiscal 2018 was the first time in the past 10 fiscal years that operating income decreased.
We will strive for a V-shaped recovery in fiscal 2019 and aim for top line growth once again and return to an earnings growth trajectory. Growth investments, structural reforms, fusion implementation, and M&A efforts are progressing steadily, as you can see here. The effects of these efforts will materialize from fiscal 2019 onwards, and we will also continue to consider this fiscal year M&A opportunities that will lead to further growth. Here is an update on fusion measures. We aim to increase cumulative net sales by JPY 50 billion through fusion, which is progressing broadly in line with expectations. As part of the development and creation theme, sales of subdivision housing in the smart town of Asaka, Saitama Prefecture, has finally started from this fiscal year.
Regarding the breakthrough biorefinery technology that we announced last year, which is a technology that can convert trash into ethanol, we have plans to start building a POC plant that is a tenth of the plant size. Finally, I'd like to talk about use of cash. We are making steady progress on making strategic capital investments, environmental contribution investments, and work style reform investments. We are continuing to consider M&A opportunities. This concludes my part. Thank you for your attention. Hello, my name is Tatsuya Nishida, Head of Corporate Finance and Accounting Department. I will elaborate on fiscal year 2018 results. First is about the status of consolidated companies. The total number of consolidated subsidiaries now stands at 153, which were up by two due to one acquisition and one establishment of a new subsidiary. The influence of change in the number of consolidated companies is shown here.
Here's a summary of profit and loss. I will give details from the ordinary income line and under. Ordinary income was JPY 93.1 billion. Due to factors such as an improvement in FX gains and losses compared to last fiscal year, the decline in ordinary income year-on-year was not as much as operating income decline. Extraordinary income and losses came in slightly better than last fiscal year. Corporate taxes and other items decreased due to changes in profit mix by region, which reduced the impact on pre-tax profit. As a result, net income attributable to the owners of the parent increased by JPY 2.6 billion, reaching JPY 66.1 billion. Here's the balance sheet. Total assets increased by JPY 29.6 billion, reaching JPY 1,023.7 billion. Inventories increased by JPY 21.7 billion during the year, as we have increased inventories of land for sale and work-in-progress houses.
Tangible non-current assets were up by JPY 29.7 billion as we made capital investments that were approximately double the size of depreciation. As for decreased items, investments in securities decreased by JPY 14.4 billion due to the sales of strategic stock holdings and a decrease in the market value of stock holdings. Here are the liabilities and net asset side of the balance sheet. Interest-bearing liabilities increased by JPY 7.5 billion. Net interest-bearing liabilities, which accounts for cash and deposits, were minus JPY 16 billion, as shown in the parentheses. This means we were in a net cash position on a year-on-year basis, but cash decreased by JPY 15.6 billion. Retained earnings and its breakdown are shown in detail, with net income contributing positively, but dividends and retirement of treasury stocks weighing. We conducted another round of share repurchases during the fiscal year under review with the acquisition and retirement of 8 million shares.
Furthermore, due to the recognition of profits and an increase in total assets, the change in ROE and shareholder equity to total assets are as shown. The next page is about consolidated cash flows. There was an JPY 85.2 billion inflow of operating cash flows, which was better than last fiscal year. The higher operating cash flow compared to last fiscal year looks better than the P&L income numbers, but this is due to brisk detached housing orders and the associated cash advances that offset the cash required for increasing land for sale and other inventory that I mentioned earlier. Another factor is slightly lower tax payments year-on-year, which you can see on the slide. Investing cash flow was a cash-out of JPY 62.6 billion. As you can see in the graph, capital investments increased substantially year-on-year. Last year had higher purchases of investments in securities due to M&As.
However, with the cash inflow associated with the withdrawal of net time deposits, investing cash flow came in broadly flat year-on-year. Free cash flow, as a result, was net positive by JPY 2 billion year-on-year, which was about the same level as last year. This page shows depreciation and amortization, capital expenditures, and EBITDA. Amortization inclusive of goodwill is increasing. For this fiscal year under review, capital expenditures were about double of depreciation. EBITDA, which is the source of our investments, is shown here too by divisional company. Overall, EBITDA is planned to be about the same as last fiscal year. Here are the FY 2019 plans for depreciation and amortization, capital expenditures, and R&D. Capital expenditures are lower than the peak in FY 2018, but depreciation is expected to rise as the investments made in the past starts operating.
FY 2019 EBITDA is expected to increase by JPY 11.1 billion. The last page of my part shows the plan for FY 2019 once again. That is all from myself. Hello, I am Ikusuke Shimizu, Company President of the High Performance Plastics Company. I will cover the details of my company. First are the performance trends. FY 2018 net sales increased and profits were down. Net sales were JPY 412 billion, and operating income was JPY 54.5 billion. Due to the sudden deterioration in the smartphone and automobile market conditions, as well as high costs of raw materials, we experienced a decline in profits for the first time in seven fiscal years. The plan for FY 2019 is growth in both net sales and profits. The plan excludes the medical business and is JPY 351 billion for net sales and JPY 50 billion for operating income.
We will strive to grow profits by increasing high-performance product sales and market share, as well as full-fledged realization of the effects of strategic investments. Here's an analysis of FY 2018 results. Net sales were JPY 412 billion, up by JPY 25.8 billion. As for operating income, please refer to the analysis shown on the right. Operating income declined by JPY 3.3 billion year-on-year. As we were in an advanced investment phase for a fixed cost, more than half of the spend was for strategic investments. Raw materials also had negative impact, and the increase in sales quantity and composition was not as much as we hoped to grow. With the sudden market deterioration from the third quarter onwards, sales quantity decreased mainly in the electronics, automobile, and transportation fields. Compared to the outlook of plus JPY 8.5 billion that we reported in January, results were JPY 2.4 billion lower.
Please refer to the bottom of the slide where we show the breakout between the first and second halves. We have been able to grow sales volume for both halves of the year, which reflects the steady progress we are making in the expansion of high-performance products. Here are the plans for FY 2019. Net sales, excluding the medical business, are projected to be up by JPY 9.7 billion to JPY 351 billion. Operating income going to the right is forecasted to be up by JPY 5.1 billion. We expect raw materials to have a positive impact on income, we will strive to grow sales quantity and composition by JPY 7 billion, mainly around our electronics and automobile and transportation businesses. This is because the effects of strategic investments are materializing in earnest.
Looking at the bottom where the breakdown between the first and second halves are shown, we are not expecting the market to recover that much during the first half, the plan is to grow sales in the second half. We will also strive to keep fixed costs down as to grow operating income. This page shows the status of our four strategic fields. Despite extremely difficult business conditions in fiscal 2018, all four fields were able to increase sales. We continue to plan for an increase in sales for the three remaining business fields in the segment, which excludes the impact from partial withdrawal. The electronics fields faced difficulties since the latter part of the third quarter last fiscal year due to the greater-than-expected slump in the smartphone market.
For fiscal year 2019, we will strive to win new applications, increase market share, and generate higher sales in the non-LCD business areas, which I will explain in detail later on. Regarding automobiles and transportation, despite being hit by the deterioration of market conditions in Europe and China, sales volume increased. As for fiscal year 2019, a new interlayer film line will start operations in Europe from the second half. We hope to further accelerate the expansion of high-performance film. In building an infrastructure, the CPVC business was sluggish in fiscal year 2018, mainly in the Middle East and India. Our plans for fiscal year 2019 are to increase sales of fire-resistant materials, mainly non-flammable urethane, as well as grow CPVC sales in the U.S. from the second half of the fiscal year. Here's a page on growth enhancement areas.
Net sales are growing mainly due to growth in semiconductor materials and electronics. Please look at the bottom bar chart under electronics. We are focusing on expanding the non-LCD business, you can tell how non-LCD sales are steadily increasing. The sales ratio was 43% in fiscal year 2018, and the plan is to reach 48% in fiscal year 2019. In the past, sales were skewed extremely towards smartphone and LCD sales, but we are in the process of diversifying this risk to transform our portfolio. In the automobiles and transportation area, we are focusing on the expansion of high-performance interlayer film. Sales grew by 8% year-on-year in fiscal year 2018, and the plan is to grow by another 8% in fiscal year 2019, which will be substantial growth.
Building and infrastructure struggled somewhat due to the intensification of price competition, our plan is to grow sales mainly through thermal insulation and non-combustible materials. We will pursue synergies with Sekisui Soflan Wiz that we acquired last fiscal year, as well as focus on global opportunities in order to grow sales in this area. As for new product sales, which are shown on the right-hand side graph, sales rebounded in fiscal year 2018 compared to the previous fiscal year. We would like to ensure that we steadily increase sales of new products in the next medium-term business plan.
Let me dive deeper into the plan for fiscal 2019. For the electronic segment, we will focus on the non-smartphone market, namely semiconductor and joining parts and materials. The graph at top left illustrates the market environment and our sales forecast. The dotted line indicates the smartphone market for fiscal 2019. It is expected to decline year-over-year, so accordingly, we put together an extremely conservative sales plan for the related materials. The semiconductor market is expected to recover from the midpoint of fiscal 2019. We would like to be active in trying to grow the sales for this application. The graph at bottom left shows the quarterly sales trend for the electronics business.
We would like to grow the non-LCD sales, particularly with the joining parts and materials and semiconductor-related products by expanding into new applications and increasing new products, so that in fourth quarter of fiscal 2019, the non-LCD sales would account for 50% of the sales for electronics. On the right are examples of the non-LCD related products. Heat resistant SELFA is a semiconductor processing material for the production of compact, large capacity semiconductor chips, for which the demand is increasing recently. It is highly resistant to heat and will easily peel off using our proprietary technology. The product is highly appreciated by the customers as it helps to improve the productivity. The bottom diagram shows elastic adhesive, one of the major products for joining parts and materials. Conventionally, tapes were used to bind the cover glass and the body.
With the parts becoming more compact, adhesives are used as alternatives to tapes. Our elastic adhesive is highly appreciated by the customers for its ease of use with great functionality of keeping the intended form and strong adhesive property. It achieves the benefit of tapes, which is the ease of use, whilst providing the strong adhesive function of adhesive materials. Some number of companies have already given us quality approval, and they're moving into a phase of full scale adoption in fiscal 2019. In the automobiles and transportation business, we would like to drive the growth with interlayer film. On the left, you will find a graph indicating the market trend in the sales of our product.
The global auto production in fiscal 2018 was in an extremely tough environment, with the total volume coming down year-over-year, we grew our sales in volume, mainly with the high performance interlayer film. In fiscal 2019, we will continue to make effort in increasing the contents per vehicle, focusing on the high performance interlayer film to achieve volume growth. Europe and China, illustrated by the bottom graph, were greatly impacted. The sales plan for fiscal 2019 is shown on the right. We have an ambitious outlook for Europe, with a new production line coming on stream in the second half and making full-fledged contribution. We remain cautious on China. This will conclude my presentation. Thank you for your attention. I am Toshiyuki Kamiyoshi, Company President for the Housing Company. My first slide is on business performance.
In fiscal 2018, we continued the streak of top-line and profit growth for the third year, with net sales marking JPY 506.7 billion and OP JPY 39 billion. As illustrated by the graphs at bottom right, new housing orders continued to grow in fiscal 2018, increasing by 4%, and renovation orders turned to positive growth of 3% year-over-year. With this, we have secured the backlog for fiscal 2019. We aim to achieve four consecutive years of sales and profit growth in fiscal 2019 by continuing with the growth strategy and smoothing the fluctuation of the construction. As indicated by the graphs on the right, we project 1% growth for new housing and flat growth for renovation. Next, let me offer you our analysis of the fiscal 2018 results. OP grew year-over-year by JPY 1.1 billion, but fell slightly short of our business plan.
The overall sales indicated by the graph on the left grew in all the segments, achieving an JPY 8.9 billion aggregate growth to JPY 506.7 billion. On the right, you can see our analysis by sub-segments and the OP grew by JPY 1.1 billion year-over-year. For new housing, the sales undershot the plan by 88 houses due to the impact of business concentrating at the end of the fiscal year, but we were still able to achieve a year-over-year growth of 174 houses. We made some front-loaded investment for securing the order for fiscal 2019. Despite the fixed cost reduction efforts, the profit was down by JPY 0.5 billion. For the renovation business, we augmented our earnings power by improving the efficiency of the indirect cost and increased the profit by JPY 1.4 billion. Frontier business is mainly real estate business.
The core business of rental housing is progressing steadily, but the sub-segment fell short of the plan due to some delay in the new business launch. This is our plan for fiscal 2019. We aim for another year of top-line and profit growth for fiscal 2019, mainly driven by the new housing business. Furthermore, we will also continue to execute our growth strategy. As shown by the graph on the left, each business is projected to grow to generate a total sales of JPY 522 billion, a year-over-year increase of JPY 15.3 billion. On the right, we show our OP projection, achieving a year-over-year growth of JPY 1.5 billion. Let me offer you the breakdown by sub-segments. First, for housing, we project a sales increase of 330 houses backed by the robust backlog and smoothing out the fluctuation in the construction work.
At the same time, we will incur some fixed costs related to growth investment, but this should be offset to achieve a JPY 1.6 billion profit growth in new housing. In home renovation, we will aim for sales growth of JPY 2.5 billion by taking in the last minute spike in demand before the tax hike in the first half and by marketing and growing the sales for our smart renovation offering. With these measures, we plan to grow the OP for renovation by JPY 400 million. At the bottom, you can find a breakdown between the first half and the second half. We expect the market to turn tough from the second quarter, so the profit projection is front-end loaded in the first half. Next, let me touch upon the specific initiatives for each of the businesses.
For new housing, we will augment the three growth strategies that we have carried out to date, namely the sales force strategy, product strategy, and the land and subdivision strategy to grow our market share. The table at top left illustrates the market outlook. Despite the government measures intended to mitigate the impact of the consumption tax hike, we expect a certain level of reactionary drop in demand after the tax hike. We expect the market to decline by 5% in the first half and by 7% in the second half. The government measures will be more generous for the first-time buyers. The demand from that customer segment should be firm, mainly for the ready-built houses. The table below shows a breakdown of our outlook.
In the first half, we expect some reactionary drop in the rebuilding of detached houses and construction of the apartment buildings. We expect firm trend for the ready-built houses as the current consumption tax will still apply if the handover to the customer is completed before October. In the second half, the detached house rebuilding and apartment building business will continue to decline. We expect a certain level of good demand for new housing, which should benefit from the government measures to mitigate the impact of the tax hike and subdivision housing sold with land, both of which will be for the volume zone. As the graph on the top right indicates, we expect the new housing order for the full year to grow by 1%.
In the first half, we are determined to capture the last-minute spike in demand for the built-to-order houses in April and May, as well as the demand for the subdivision housing in order to achieve a 2% order book growth. The market will be very tough in the second half. We'd like to stable that adversity by augmenting the three growth strategies that I mentioned earlier so that we can maintain a flat growth over the previous year. The table at bottom left demonstrates our specific measures. For strengthening the sales force, we've been able to increase the number of model house galleries and headcounts. We now have the largest sales force in the last 10 years of operation. To maintain and improve the capability of the individual sales personnel, we rolled out experience-oriented showrooms as the means to differentiate. Below is a strategy on products.
New products highlighted by the yellow line were launched in April to complete a product portfolio that will enable us to cover a broad spectrum of customers. Smart Power Station Urban will be a product that is aimed at capturing the volume zone demand after the tax hike. It is a steel frame SPS with affordable price range, with a land size of roughly 100 sq m. The storage battery is provided as a standard plan. The price will be around JPY 20 million. We will leverage on the strategic product to offset the weakness in the market. For the land strategy, we have secured enough land bank for the first-time buyers who are the volume zone customers. The land inventory is actually largest ever for the company.
We would like to capitalize on these strategies to capture the orders with Smart House offering and products for the first-time buyers, as indicated on the right. My last slide is on our initiatives on renovation, frontier, and overseas business. The top left table shows the renovation business. In the first half, we still expect to see some demand spike prior to the tax hike, so we will prepare new products while also focusing on large-scale expansion and renovation orders. Throughout the year, we will focus on the Smart House offering, emphasizing the storage battery as the demand is increasing with the end of the feed-in tariff system and with more individuals showing their desire to be prepared for natural catastrophe risks. We reorganized the sales force to those focusing on regular home diagnosis and others focusing on pure sales activities.
The aim is to enhance the quality of after service to increase the sales for our strategic product and smart home offerings. Top right is our domestic frontier business, mainly the real estate business. As a new initiative, we want to augment the second-hand housing business. For the overseas strategies, we will augment the sales force, just as we are doing for the domestic subdivision housing business to aim for a full-fledged growth. This will conclude my presentation. Thank you very much for your attention. I am Yoshiyuki Hirai, President of Urban Infrastructure & Environmental Products Company, or UIEP. Let me start my presentation. Please take a look at the bottom graph for the business performance trend. We acknowledge that our challenge is the stagnant revenue growth over the last few years. In fiscal 2019, we'd like to focus on achieving OP growth by growing our sales.
Next is analysis of fiscal 2018 results. As the left graph indicates, the overall revenue growth was flat as the sales decline in the domestic business offset the sales growth achieved overseas. The impact was felt on the operating income, as illustrated by the right graph. The operating income for the domestic business was down by JPY 0.9 billion, whereas for overseas, it increased by JPY 1.1 billion. In Japan, we struggled with the general products, both in terms of volume and selling price. In particular, sales quantity and composition factor posed a greater negative impact than what we had anticipated in January, mainly due to the delay in the CapEx plans for companies in the IT sector. Our piping products used in plants is strong in the semiconductor fab, among others. The weakness in that sector pressed various companies to postpone their CapEx, and that directly hit our business.
The construction work is also getting behind schedule, and their delivery timing was pushed back to dates that were later than expected. For overseas, although we were just slightly short of the January outlook, we can uphold good expectation as we can anticipate a sufficient recovery for the aircraft sheet application going forward. This is our plan for fiscal 2019. We project both the domestic and overseas sales to grow. As demonstrated by the OP analysis graph on the right, we want to achieve a solid OP growth of JPY 3.8 billion by the sales quantity and composition factor. This is the aggregate of domestic and overseas business, and the breakdown is JPY 2.4 billion increase in Japan by expanding the prioritized product sales and JPY 1.4 billion overseas.
The plan for Japan calls for a spread improvement for the general products, not incorporating volume increase and making steady progress for cost reduction or CR activity by reorganizing the production facilities. The fixed cost, which essentially is depreciation cost, will be up due to the ramp-up investments for the overseas aircraft sheet business and FFU, for which the railway sleeper demand is increasing in Japan. The depreciation will be higher, but we'd like to offset that by sales quantity and CR impact. Let me put our planning into context by also touching upon our market outlook. UIEP's addressable markets can be basically broken into three areas: public, private, and overseas. For the public market, in addition to the budget for the National Resilience Plan, three-year emergency measures were newly added in response to the natural disasters that hit Japan last year.
As the graph indicates, the sales ratio of the prioritized products in the public sector business is extremely high. As shown on the right, these products include the materials for pipeline renewal and soil-smack application for tunnel construction, which is FFU, the same material used for sleepers. We believe there's room for growth with these products. It's not shown on the slide, but in March, we obtained the approval for a construction method that enables year-round construction installation as well as construction in rain. This should mitigate the labor shortage issue for construction work, and we expect to enjoy strong growth. This expectation is baked into the projection. For the private sector, we can further divide the business into residential and non-residential.
The footnotes beside the left graph explains the timing of when the demand for our products emerges. This reflects the recent delay in the construction schedule, so extra two, three months are added to the conventional cycle. The cycle is six months and 12 months after the start of the construction for residential and non-residential, respectively. We have put together the sales plan based on the past data. As the bar graph in the middle indicates, the total revenue is not expected to grow significantly. However, the proportion of the prioritized product sales is increasing, such as for shortening the construction work time and reinforcing climate measures against torrential rain, the applications that you find on the right. The left graph for overseas just illustrates the aircraft business in the U.S. The drop in fiscal 2017 recovered in fiscal 2018. We project further growth for fiscal 2019.
The bar graph in the middle shows the overall overseas sales trend. The aircraft business alone is also trending in a similar growth rate. For sleepers, we are seeing increasing number of projects adopting our products. That is also reflected in the numbers. Let me elaborate on the three strategic fields. As the graphs illustrate, we aim to expand the sales of the new products for piping and infrastructure. We expect recovery of the plant-related demand, which dropped in fiscal 2018. We also embarked on reorganizing the production, owing the consumption tax hike. The graph at bottom left is building and living environment for which we are not projecting a material growth. We expect the demand to decline in the second half after the tax hike. Our focus will be on structural reform so that we can secure profit.
In advanced materials, we'd like to expand the application for a sheet beyond the aircraft demand. With the ramp-up investment, there is ample room for sales growth. Similarly, we've made capacity increase investment for FFU as well. In fiscal 2018, we built track records in 29 countries. The focus of our activity will be on increasing the number of railway operators who will adopt our product in those markets. New product sales is growing steadily. In the last three years, it was very strong in terms of new product launch. The bar highlighted by the yellow line are the products suitable for addressing social issues so the launch of this product is enjoying quick uptick. Last but not least, I'd like to make a few additional comments on prioritized products and overseas business.
As you can see from the top right graph, sales of prioritized product is growing, but the overall sales is not. The challenge is how to cope with the declining sales trend of the general products. As shown on the right, we intend to execute the reorganization measures of the production structure. The three plans listed here will serve as the core plans, where we will consolidate the production of the general products and pursue cost reduction with initiative including automation. For the prioritized products, we will use the space freed up from the transfer of the general products production to ramp up the capacity and to promote more collaboration between development and manufacturing at respective plants for further expansion. We intend to grow in all the areas for the overseas business. For pipeline renewal, we'd like to increase the number of partner companies for installation.
For piping and industrial piping, we will work to further tighten the collaboration with Tien Phong Plastic, a Vietnamese company that we took equity stake. For the sheet business, we'd like to capitalize on the added capacity to tap new aircraft customers and expand in the medical application. For advanced materials, FFU, we'd like to increase the customers adopting the product mainly in Europe, so we can take advantage of the production facility in Europe. This will conclude my presentation. Thank you for your attention. I am Keita Kato, Head of Business Strategy Department. We decided to carve out the medical business from the High Performance Plastics Company to be placed under the management of the corporate headquarters from fiscal 2019. The intention was to facilitate the growth strategy in order to nurture the business as a fourth group company.
As the slide indicates, the performance of the medical business had been driven by a series of M&As. The dent in fiscal 2011 was due to the one-off expense, namely the goodwill, which we incurred when we acquired the diagnostic reagents business from the U.S. Genzyme. In fiscal 2018, the business enjoyed both top line and profit growth, achieving sales of JPY 70.7 billion and OP of JPY 9.6 billion. For fiscal 2019, we expect to achieve both sales and profit growth once again, projecting sales of JPY 72.5 billion and JPY 10 billion OP, reaching the JPY 10 billion line for the first time. Let me give you a quick snapshot and the growth strategy for the medical business. There are two subsegments in medical.
The first one is Diagnostics Business, where we develop, manufacture, and distribute the diagnostic reagents for blood coagulation, diabetes, infectious diseases, among others, as well as the vacuum blood collection tubes. The second subsegment is the pharmaceutical science business. We do consign production of the active pharmaceutical ingredients such as amino acids, and provide drug development solutions service, which includes solutions such as pharmacokinetic study for the development of pharmaceutical drugs. The basic strategy is to augment these two core businesses. Furthermore, in order to achieve further business expansion, we will promote global initiative, including M&As, and expand into new areas such as specialty peptide and enzymes, for which we made some strategic investment. The bottom right table lists up the six focus areas. Please have a look later to see the main products in each category.
Let me also go through the fiscal 2019 guidance and the projection for each of the businesses. We will aim for sales of JPY 72.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of JPY 1.8 billion. Top right is a Diagnostics Business, for which we plan a JPY 3 billion sales increase to JPY 58.1 billion by expanding the new product sales and augmenting the business platforms in Europe, U.S., and Asia. For the pharmaceutical science business, we are projecting sales decline due to demand coming down from some clients as they become more efficient in their usage. However, we will make efforts to grow the orders from new clients as well as the drug development solutions business. The bottom left graph is analysis of the operating income.
We aim to significantly increase the marginal profit by mainly growing the diagnostic creation business and will aim to reach JPY 10 billion in OP for the first time in Medical Business. This will conclude my presentation. Thank you for your attention.