I am Teiji Koge, President of Sekisui Chemical. I'll explain FY 2017 results and our plans for FY 2018. For FY 2017, net sales grew substantially and operating profit, as well as each level of profit, achieved record highs. Based on the results, fiscal year-end dividends have been increased by 2 JPY a share from 19 JPY to 21 JPY, adding up to 40 JPY a share for the full year, up by 5 JPY. Unfortunately, though, we were not able to achieve the revised plan that was announced in January. Each of the divisional companies will explain the reasons later. The HPP, High Performance Plastics Company, recorded record-high earnings. Net sales and operating income increased due to sales expansion of high-performance products, mainly in the automobiles and transportation field.
In the electronics field, due to the sudden slowdown in the smartphone market, especially since this year, results were below the operating profit target by 1.2 billion JPY. As for the Housing Company, due to the poor weather conditions during Q3, there was a concentration of sales, housing completions, and deliveries in Q4. We were able to accomplish results that were broadly in line with plan despite weak renovation orders and sales weighing on results. The UIEP, Urban Infrastructure & Environmental Products Company, renewed its record-high earnings with the expansion of prioritized products and achieving spreads. We fell short of operating income plans, though, due to the later than expected recovery of aircraft sheets that we assumed would pick up in the second half. Each divisional company president will provide details later. Incidentally, we actively invested in R&D in order to commercialize the themes we are working on.
Here are the results for the first and second halves. On a total company basis, first-half operating income increased by 2.3 billion JPY, but the increase became a smaller 400 million JPY in the second half due to an upswing in raw material costs, a stronger yen, and deterioration in the business environment. We actively invested in R&D for commercialization. HPP and UIEP reached record-high earnings in the second half as well. Here's an analysis of net sales and operating income for FY 2017. There was business structural reform and new consolidation impact in FY 2017, net sales grew by 32.4 billion JPY even when excluding these factors. Overall, sales reached 1,107.4 billion JPY. Operating income went up by 2.8 billion JPY, reaching 99.2 billion JPY. Adjusting product prices and cost reduction minimized raw materials cost that went up by more than 8 billion JPY.
Sales quantity and composition made up for the increase in fixed costs. Although we controlled fixed costs against the January outlook, sales quantity and composition went below plan. The breakdown of the underperformance is shown in the bubble. I will talk about our plans for FY 2018. The foreign exchange rate assumptions are shown here with the yen at 100 JPY to the USD and 134 JPY to the EUR. We will strive to achieve higher net sales and earnings once again with operating and net income achieving record highs for 6 years in a row. The outlook is 1,168 billion JPY for net sales and 102 billion JPY for operating income. We will work hard to achieve these numbers as we view this fiscal year as a core second year of our medium-term management plan.
We plan to raise dividends for the ninth straight fiscal year at JPY 42 a share. Here are the full year plans by divisional company. All three divisional companies are planning for higher net sales and operating profits. We will continue to actively undertake group-wide R&D investments for commercialization. Next, let me talk about the assumptions we have for market conditions. In the electronics field, demand that plunged during the fourth quarter of 2017 in the smartphone market is not expected to recover in the first quarter of fiscal 2018. A gradual recovery from the second quarter is anticipated. For automobile production, the situation is patchy depending on region, but global growth is expected to be up by 2% year-on-year. For housing, we expect the market to gradually pick up from the second half with the upcoming consumption tax hikes.
We anticipate a plateau in naphtha prices staying at the high level recorded in Q4 last fiscal year. Overall, the business environment is expected to continue to be challenging in the first half and improving in the second. For the first time, we are also announcing the full-year plans by divisional company broken down into the first and second halves. Operating income for all three divisional companies are planned to be flat year-on-year for the first half. During the first half, a difficult business environment is expected to continue regarding high raw material prices, a stronger yen, and the market conditions I referred to earlier. Higher fixed cost, such as labor cost, is expected as well.
For the second half, we are planning for higher earnings with a better business environment and a market pickup, as well as a positive impact from M&A synergies, strategic investment for capacity expansion, and structural reforms. The plan is relatively second-half heavy, but the details will be provided later. R&D spending will be conducted according to plan with many themes reaching the final phases before commercialization. Here we show an analysis of operating income for fiscal 2018. A stronger yen, higher raw materials cost, and higher fixed cost, such as labor and depreciation, is accounted for in the fiscal 2018 plan. We plan for JPY 102 billion operating income, up by JPY 2.8 billion this fiscal year.
Making up for the negative factors are sales quantity and composition, as well as cost reduction, with the details to follow from the divisional companies regarding the substantial increase of JPY 19.4 billion in sales quantity and composition. Finally, let me touch upon shareholder return measures. We will continue to engage in measures so as to improve capital efficiency in order to achieve our commitments in our medium-term plan that are steady dividends and a ROE of 12%. Dividends for fiscal 2018 are planned to be JPY 2 higher year-on-year at JPY 42 a share. At the board meeting today, we have decided to do a share buyback this fiscal year as well, which will be up to 8 million shares or JPY 16 billion at most. The cancellation of 8 million shares has also been decided today. Next, I will talk about progress under the medium-term management plan.
In fiscal 2018, we will continue to focus on new products, new businesses, and new areas to grow top line, accelerate earnings growth, and strive for higher operating income 10 years in a row and record highs six years in a row. As you can see on the slide, measures regarding forward-looking investments for the future, constant structural reform, and fusion and M&A efforts are progressing steadily. The dark orange color shows when the benefits are going to be realized in earnest, and we believe the benefits will materialize steadily during fiscal 2018 and 2019. Here are details about the JPY 130 billion sales growth we are planning for during the midterm plan, with existing businesses increasing by about JPY 80 billion and fusion measures expected to add on about JPY 50 billion. Progress is steady with JPY 19 billion already materialized in fiscal 2017, and we anticipate another JPY 14 billion during fiscal 2018.
Development and creation themes are also proceeding well. Here, we show use of cash. We have been making strategic investments for our growth engine, interlayer film in Europe for resin production and line expansion for the third line, as well as in other areas that were highlighted in orange in the previous slide. Environmental contribution investments are proceeding steadily as well. We will continue to consider investment opportunities for growth together with M&A options. This concludes my part. Thank you for your attention. I am Tatsuya Nishida, Executive Officer and Head of the Corporate Finance and Accounting Department. I will explain the highlights of the fiscal 2017 results. The number of consolidated companies increased to 151. The influence of change in the number is as shown. I will give some comments regarding ordinary income and the lines below on this page.
Ordinary income was JPY 93.9 billion, which increased by about the same amount as operating income. Extraordinary items improved substantially this fiscal year due to the absence of items from last fiscal year, such as gain on sales of investments in securities under extraordinary income and devaluation losses of investments in securities and business structural reform-related expenses that were recognized under extraordinary losses. As a result, income before income taxes were JPY 94.3 billion, up JPY 11.5 billion year-on-year. Net income increased by JPY 2.6 billion, reaching JPY 63.5 billion. Next, our balance sheet items. Total assets increased by JPY 55.5 billion. After taking out the influence of change of consolidated companies and foreign exchange impact, assets grew by JPY 25.3 billion on an underlying basis. Inventories were up by JPY 16.9 billion due to an increase of land for sale and other factors.
Tangible and intangible non-current assets increased as well due to increased capital investments and M&A-related goodwill and other factors. Investment in securities increased by JPY 20.8 billion due to purchases in investments in securities and the appreciation of stock prices of listed shares that we own. As for liabilities and net asset items, retained earnings increased by JPY 33.1 billion due to a rise in net income and dividend payments and retirement of treasury stock. During the fiscal year, JPY 16 billion of treasury stock was purchased and JPY 12.9 billion was retired. Regarding consolidated cash flow, operating cash flow was JPY 82.3 billion. It went slightly below fiscal 2017 levels due to an increase in working capital used for inventories, et cetera, and because of higher tax payments this year compared to last year, when taxable income and tax payments came in lower than profit levels on an accounting basis.
Investing cash flows were up year-on-year, reaching a JPY 60.9 billion cash out as capital investments and M&As increased this fiscal year. Financing cash flows were JPY 36 billion, with the majority attributed to dividend payments and share buybacks. Free cash flow was a positive JPY 2.3 billion. Details of depreciation and capital expenditures are shown here. Depreciation is up in line with the increase in capital expenditures. Depreciation, capital expenditure, and R&D expenditure plans for fiscal 2018 are shown here. CapEx will increase as we will continue to invest for expansion, leading to higher depreciation by about JPY 40 billion. We also plan to increase R&D spending by about JPY 40 billion. Finally, here is a summary of our plans for fiscal 2018 again. This concludes my part.
Hello, I am Keita Kato, Company President of the HPP, High Performance Plastics Company. First, our performance trends.
We were able to report record high divisional company profits for fiscal year 2017, despite the impact from high raw material costs. As we saw a slowdown during the fourth quarter last fiscal year, we would like to respond flexibly and swiftly to changes in the global economic environment and target a sixth consecutive fiscal year of record-high profits in fiscal 2018. Looking at the performance trend bar chart, during fiscal 2014 through 2016, that was the period for the previous midterm plan, top line was flat as we engaged in structural reform efforts and portfolio strengthening. Under the current medium-term management plan, we shifted our focus to growth by actively engaging in M&As and strategic investments.
The fiscal year under review was the first year under the new medium-term management plan. We reached a record high for top line at JPY 386.2 billion and JPY 57.8 billion in operating income. Main M&As and strategic investments are shown under the graph, such as Polymatech in September 2017, Soflan Wiz in December, and the third line for interlayer film in Mexico also in December. With the addition of these new companies, in fiscal 2018, we are planning for net sales to reach JPY 418 billion, exceeding JPY 400 billion for the first time, an operating profit of JPY 59.5 billion. I'll explain the breakdown of the outlook later. The operating margin outlook is 14.2%, but if newly consolidated companies are excluded, it would be more than 14.8%, so 14.2% is within expectations.
As for investment and return on the right, we spent a substantial JPY 78 billion for strategic investments and M&As during fiscal 2017. We believe that there is still capacity for us to invest in growth during fiscal 2018 and onwards when looking at the balance between investments and return. Thus, the plus alpha in the chart means that we will continue to consider M&A opportunities. An analysis of net sales and operating income is shown here. Sales quantity and composition contributed to results mainly due to automobiles and transportation field. Due to a slowdown in demand in the electronics field, we were not able to reach the operating income plan set forth in January. We were also impacted by high raw material costs significantly, were able to hedge a big portion of it due to cost reduction efforts made by the production division.
Net sales increased by JPY 28.6 billion year-on-year. If structural reform and new consolidations were excluded, net sales increased by JPY 16.9 billion. As for operating income, foreign exchange impact was plus JPY 1.2 billion. Fixed cost weighed by minus JPY 1.4 billion. For marginal profit, sales quantity and composition was plus JPY 5 billion, with electronics and building and infrastructure being about the same as last fiscal year, whilst automobiles and transportation and life science grew. The breakdown by first and second halves are shown at the bottom. The positive JPY 2 billion in sales quantity and composition during the second half is attributed to the slowdown in electronics during the fourth quarter. We were originally assuming close to a positive JPY 4 billion.
Even under such circumstances, however, we think that we have set off to a good start for the first year of the medium-term management plan, as profits grew substantially during the second half, year-on-year by JPY 2 billion. Here is our plan for FY 2018. We are planning to secure a substantial increase in sales volume and composition in all four strategic areas this fiscal year and will respond swiftly to deteriorating market conditions, reduce costs even more, as well as engage in other measures so as to secure an appropriate spread. We plan for JPY 31.8 billion higher net sales or JPY 14.7 billion higher when excluding new consolidations.
Looking at the analysis of operating income on the right, as we have been investing in M&As and also significant investment for a new line in Mexico since FY 2017, fixed cost, including goodwill amortization, will increase. Foreign exchange will have a negative impact, and raw materials cost is expected to continue to have an adverse impact. Cost reduction expectations are only JPY 1 billion at this moment, despite the efforts made by the production division, but we hope to achieve a higher number by any means. The driver of earnings growth is expected to be sales quantity and composition under the current plan, contributing by JPY 11.4 billion. The details are shown in the bubble.
More than JPY 10 billion growth year-on-year in sales quantity and composition has been achieved in FY 2013 and FY 2016 as well, and we believe it is not a stretch for FY 2018, as the new line in Mexico will contribute on a full year basis this fiscal year, that only contributed during Q4 last fiscal year. Looking at the breakout between the first and second halves at the bottom, sales quantity and composition is higher in the second half at plus JPY 7.3 billion. We believe this is a fair balance considering that the electronics, smartphone, and automobile markets are skewed towards the second half of the year, as shown on page nine. I'd like to explain the four strategic fields in light of how we are progressing against the midterm business plan. Automobiles and transportation and life science are securing steady top line and profit growth.
The projection for the electronics business does not assume a strong market recovery, especially for the first half. If it does, we may enjoy some upside. For all the four strategic fields, we hope to recoup the benefit of strategic investment, namely the production ramp-up and synergy as soon as possible. The light blue bar in the graphs represents incremental revenue stemming from the M&A activities. As you can see, with the exception of life science, other three strategic businesses have realized revenue growth in an extremely timely manner thanks to the acquisitions, and we'd like to expedite the synergy for profit as well. Let's look at each of the strategic fields one by one. The electronics business was heavily impacted by the smartphone market in the second half of fiscal 2017.
With that as a background, we intend to further accelerate our initiatives to make a shift to non-LCD applications and augment the business portfolio. With existing products, we aim to increase our market share, capture new customers, and grow sales. For applications that have started to bud and show some good prospect in semiconductor and OLED, we will consider increasing the capacity during this fiscal year. For automobiles and transportation, the full year contribution of the new production line in Mexico operating at full capacity should propel sales and profit growth. In the current electronics applications, we will leverage on the synergy from the acquisition of Polymatech and expedite the business development with a particular focus on the heat dissipation products. For building and infrastructure, we will work to grow our market share with amazing products and grow the business overseas.
Looking at the different markets for CPVC, competition in India is intensifying. Market in Middle East is showing some gradual recovery. In North America, we were able to win a new project that required us to meet the client's demanding specification. Our strategy is to grow in the Americas. For fire-resistant materials, we plan to strike synergy with Soflan Wiz, a top market share company in Japan for spray tape heat insulation building material to expand the sale of fireproof urethane. We are already starting to realize synergy, being able to engage in businesses and have our product as standard option with some of the major general contractors. In life science, we expect the main diagnostics business in the developed market to remain upbeat, and we'd like to achieve further growth in the emerging market.
In addition, with the acquisition of a diagnostics company in Singapore, we hope to create synergy and expand into the frontier and peripheral businesses. This slide illustrates the work we are putting into the growth enhancement in other business areas beyond the current midterm business plan. The growth enhancement areas indicated in the upper half of the slide are the businesses that we have focused on in order to strengthen the business portfolio under the current midterm business plan. The respective product offerings are also listed. Thanks to our initiatives to nurture these new opportunities over the last two or three years, revenue growth for all of the four strategic fields is now on the horizon. The bottom half are what we call the corporation enhancement areas, for which we expect the opportunities to materialize during the next midterm business plan and beyond.
We have a particular focus on the current electronic segment. We are now at a juncture where we can anticipate tremendous opportunity leveraging on the synergy development with Polymatech. As I commented earlier, the synergy between our fire-resistant materials business and Soflan Wiz is showing good progress. For healthcare, the timeline is slightly longer. With the establishment of PeptiStar, the manufacturing capability for peptide pharmaceutical ingredients was built out, and we are striving to establish the business to be a new pillar for the future. In automobiles and transportation, we are collaborating with UIEP's aircraft sheet team to pave our ways into the aircraft industry as HPP Company, and the collaboration is enjoying good progress. We have the information on our new products and new businesses on the right-hand side.
Thanks to the reform at the R&D center over the last four years or so, the quality of the chosen theme and the research progress have improved. With that, the declining trend of sales for the new product and new businesses has finally come to a halt. Starting from fiscal 2018, we can expect sales growth with the new products. Furthermore, there will be more advancement on the themes that we are working on, allowing us to hold good growth expectation for fiscal 2019 and beyond. Although the sales for new businesses is growing, it is slightly below our expectation, so we need to step up the development work and further acceleration is necessary. This will conclude my presentation on HPP. Thank you very much for your attention.
I am Shunichi Sekiguchi, the Company President for the Housing Company.
Before I present the business plan for the Housing Company, let me quickly review fiscal 2017. As indicated by the third group of bars from the right, we achieved two consecutive years of revenue and profit growth, with sales reaching JPY 497.8 billion and operating income JPY 37.9 billion for fiscal 2017. For the new housing business, orders for Grand To You V, which was a volume zone product launched in April 2017, was extremely brisk, and the sub-segment enjoyed sales and profit growth. On the other hand, the order for renovation business fell short of the plan in last year's performance, resulting in both sales and profit decline. We need to transform the business model in fiscal 2018. I will talk in more details later. The frontier business, namely the domestic real estate business as well as the business in Thailand, is enjoying relatively steady profit.
This slide shows the analysis of changes in net sales and operating income. On the left is the revenue, which grew by JPY 12.8 billion year-on-year. Sales for housing and frontier grew, but unfortunately not for the renovation business. On the right is the analysis of operating income. For the housing business, operating income grew by JPY 800 million year-on-year, offsetting the adversity of rising steel and construction material prices by volume growth, which was positive to the operating income by JPY 2.6 billion. Also with fixed cost savings. For the renovation business, marginal profit was small due to the sales falling short of the projection. Fixed costs increased by JPY 400 million year-on-year. As a result, the renovation business posted a big year-on-year operating income decline of JPY 1.1 billion. Frontier business very much on par with our plan, both for the domestic and the overseas business.
In the comment about the housing business at the top of the slide, we have disclosed that the housing orders in unit base were up by 1% year-on-year. This was a result of the new detached housing orders growing by 3% and the condos declining by 17%. Despite the very tough market environment, we fared well in our view as we were able to grow the detached housing orders by 3%, underpinned by the new product offerings. Let's move on to the plan for fiscal 2018. As indicated by the bullet point in bold letters, there are two key points for fiscal 2018. One is to achieve three consecutive years of sales and profit growth. Second point is to secure growth in order backlog for new housing business to aim for a strong performance in fiscal 2019.
With the consumption tax scheduled to go up from 8% to 10% in October 2019, the last month for us to receive the order under the current 8% consumption tax for the build-to-order housing will be April 2019, which means there is less than one year left. For the renovation business, we will transform the current business model, which relies on sales and marginal profit growth. We will reset ourselves through a fresh new start in order to reinvent the business model so that we could go back to the growth trajectory from fiscal 2019 and beyond for both sales and profit. On the left, you can see the sales projection, which is calling for a growth of JPY 18.2 billion, driven by the housing and real estate business growth. We anticipate the sales for renovation business to decline. On the right is a profit projection.
The operating income for the housing business is expected to increase by JPY 500 million. For the housing materials in fiscal 2018, the cost impact for timber would be greater than that of the steel, and this will be a pressure on the profit. However, we plan to compensate for that by increasing the number of housing units sold. Fixed cost is expected to go up due to the headcount increase by approximately 500 in aggregate for the housing business and at the factory. Out of that, roughly 300 will be the additional headcounts for the sales team. In the plan, we budgeted sales decline for the renovation business, and therefore, the marginal profit will also be down. However, we will make efforts to cover that by strategically reducing the fixed cost.
I will elaborate how we will achieve that later, but basically, we will focus on the labor cost to lower the fixed cost by redeploying the people to the new housing team and real estate team. You can also see the plan for the frontier business in Japan and abroad on this page. One thing worth noting is the half and half split shown at the bottom of the slide. The first half operating income is expected to be flat year-on-year at JPY 17.8 billion. In the second half, we are projecting a JPY 1.6 billion increase to JPY 21.7 billion. In projecting the first half, the order backlog at the beginning of the year has not increased much compared to last year.
The order backlog for renovation in the first quarter is very small, and with the lead time from order to booking sales for the business being relatively short, first quarter in particular will be extremely challenging. However, we would like to achieve a flat operating income in the first half versus fiscal 2017 by securing the orders in Q1. In the second half, we expect a certain level of orders stemming from the last-minute demand before the tax hike. In addition, the structural reform for the renovation business model should be completed, after which we want to grow the profit. The critical part of the strategy is how we plan to capture more customizing orders for the new housing business. Before I dive into that, let me share the outlook for the housing market.
Starting from the second half, we expect to see some last-minute demand before the tax hike, mainly in the metropolitan market, but expect the magnitude to be less than the previous cycle when the tax was raised from 5% to 8%. The graph at the top right compares the impact from the previous tax hike and what we expect this time. Last time, the order book grew by 9% for the period from 12 months to six months prior to the last order date before the new and higher tax became applicable, and 14% from six months to that last order date. This time, we are estimating the impact to be one-third, so 3% and 6% order increase for the corresponding period and 4% growth when annualized. In spite of our expectation for the last-minute spike in demand, we anticipate the impact of the tax hike to be somewhat subdued.
This assumption is baked into our business plan. As for the measures for order taking, we will continue to pursue the three existing strategies. Strategy on product, land and subdivision housing, and sales. We launched three new products in 2017, which have all contributed to order book growth. In 2018, we have two plans for the main steel frame flat roof-based product since we have not done anything new with this series in fiscal 2017. This year, we launched a new steel frame product in April and will renew the existing model looking into the second half, with which we aim to grow the order intake. The subdivision housing business was strong in fiscal 2017, and in April at the outset of the new fiscal year, we had secured more land than we did in fiscal 2017.
The sales force was increased by 120 people or by 5% year-on-year as of April 1st. The key strategy is going to be centered around the land bank, salespeople, and product offering. The major challenge lies with the renovation business. We will roll out countermeasures in terms of product, sales force, and cost control, and the most critical one will be the cost control indicated at the bottom of the table. We will make the indirect functions more efficient. In our effort to win big renovation orders, we beefed up the support functions such as configuration and design so that staff with those expertise would be able to join the salesperson on their customer visit. This resulted in higher fixed cost, the sales did not grow as expected.
Therefore, we will once again streamline these indirect functions and make sure that the salespeople will be able to talk and market to the customers on their own. As shown by the graph at the bottom left, we will continue to offer existing strategic products, but we'll also aim to grow the revenue with other important products like the maintenance-related offerings, and ultimately make sure that we can grow the sales in fiscal 2019. For the frontier business, which is centered around the real estate business, we will increase the number of dwelling units under management by 2,000 units from 45,000 in fiscal 2017 to 47,000 in fiscal 2018. The sales of new condo unit is around 4,000 to 5,000, our plan is to manage roughly half of that ourselves. This would result in sales growth of JPY 1.5 billion-JPY 1.6 billion.
We will also increase the offering in the secondhand market. The Thai business in fiscal 2017 was quiet, impacted by the mourning period of the deceased king. Since January this year, the order trend is recovering. We are projecting sales to increase to 180 units from 148 units in fiscal 2017 and secure good profit. The progress is slow against the midterm business plan, we will try to overcome a very tough market environment by shedding light to the prominence unique to Sekisui Heim to move forward in fiscal 2018.
I am Hajime Kubo, Company President of the Urban Infrastructure and Environmental Products Company, or UIEP. This slide illustrates the business performance over the last few years.
Although the operating income for fiscal 2017 was short of the plan by JPY 200 million, the overall profitability improved, and we achieved better operating margin and renewed the previous record high profit. In fiscal 2018, we will improve the profitability further by growing the top line and aim for another record high profit. Here is the performance analysis for fiscal 2017. The net sales in fiscal 2017 were down by JPY 1.1 billion year-over-year. When stripping out the impact of the business structural reform of negative JPY 5.1 billion, revenue was effectively higher by JPY 4 billion, as indicated by the footnote at the bottom. The operating income grew by JPY 2 billion. Domestic business grew by JPY 2.7 billion and overseas business marked a JPY 0.7 billion decline.
For the business in Japan, we were able to offset the impact of the rising material cost by raising the selling price and with CR, or cost reduction activities. We also improved in terms of sales quantity and composition, thanks to the initiative intended to improve the business mix by focusing on the prioritized products with higher profitability. The efforts bore fruit, we enjoyed profit contribution from the sales quantity and composition element. In the overseas business, one of the clients for the aircraft sheet business that we have explained a number of times in the past was involved in a M&A transaction as a target, hence, from the outset of the year, the sales became pretty much flat over fiscal 2016. After the first half of fiscal 2017, we detected a slight recovery and for a moment thought that it could lead to a steady recovery.
That was not the case, the business was stagnant throughout the year against our expectations. This caused a significant shortfall versus the plan. SPR and other products enjoyed growth overseas, but it was not enough to cover for the weakness already explained, the operating income for the overseas business was down by JPY 0.7 billion. Under the business plan for FY 2018, we aim to grow the net sales by JPY 7.8 billion. Operating income is expected to increase by JPY 1.7 billion, with JPY 0.7 billion coming from the domestic business and another JPY 1 billion from the overseas business. For the domestic business, we will continue to undertake initiatives from FY 2017.
The rising raw material costs will be offset by selling price and CR activities, while we'll expand the profit in terms of sales quantity and composition with growth in the proportion of the prioritized products. The fixed costs will rise mainly due to higher labor costs stemming from realigning the organization and investing activities. Overseas, the client with aircraft sheet that I explained earlier has completed the M&A process in March this year. The sales is starting to come back, we project top-line growth with the aircraft sheet business and will also expand the sales of other products in order to achieve profit growth.
The first half, second half balance was distorted in FY 2017, as many of the deals originally scheduled for the second half was brought forward to the first half, making the first half look exceptionally high and the year-on-year profit growth in the second half appear subdued. For FY 2018, the first half profit will be flat over last year, that would still be at a relatively high level given what happened last FY. We would consider the half-on-half split in FY 2018 to be the normal level. Let me go through each of the strategic fields. For the domestic business in piping and infrastructure, we will target the growing building and infrastructure demand mainly in the Tokyo metropolitan area in order to expand the sales of new products and prioritize products.
Overseas, the plan is to roll out the industrial material fitting and catch basin business to the ASEAN market and to augment the pipeline renewal business. We will aim to grow the revenue by a little less than JPY 4 billion in this business field. In building and living environment, we do not expect much revenue growth, we intend to grow the profit by improving the product mix with a particular focus on the new products with higher profitability that we launched last year. For advanced materials, we expect the recovery of the aircraft sheet business, as I explained earlier. We started to take the initiative of new market development last year. We will continue with the strategy and would like to grow the net sales by moving into new markets such as the railway market and medical market.
With FFU, we will expand the overseas railway sleeper application and capture the strong domestic demand for infrastructure projects. We also have the blow mold container business, and sterilization container is under development. We would like to capitalize on this new offering to expand into regenerative medicine and electronic material market. For advanced materials, we plan to grow the sales by close to JPY 4 billion. Let me quickly cover each of the strategies. As a part of the growth strategy, we started to step up our efforts for new product launches during fiscal 2017 and launched 27 new products last year. We plan to launch 30 new products in fiscal 2018, and we would like to keep this pace of having roughly 30 new product launches each year.
The sales mix of the prioritized product is increasing, this year we will grow the sales of the prioritized product by little over JPY 5 billion. Overseas, we will accelerate the product strategy for the respective areas. As you can see with the table, the pipeline renovation business finally turned into profit in fiscal 2017. With this as a base, we will reinforce the business development in Europe, U.S., and Asia, with the main focus placed on the Australian market. For piping and infrastructure, we will leverage on the capital investment we made in a Vietnamese company last year. Using that as a hub, we will expand in the ASEAN market. I will skip the aircraft sheet business as this was already explained. Last year, we obtained the approval from the German Federal Railway for our FFU.
In fiscal 2017, we were able to grow our sales in Europe as well as build sales track records in the U.S. and Asia. We will keep this momentum to grow further in fiscal 2018. In aggregate, we aim to grow the overseas sales by little less than JPY 5 billion and plan to grow the sales by JPY 10 billion with the growth strategy and overseas strategy combined. For the strategic investments and investments for platform efficiency, please refer to the table at the bottom. The overarching theme for platform efficiency is to achieve better productivity, as the current production structure of UIEP, which is small scale and dispersed in different locations, hinders efficient operation. By establishing a common platform for the organization, we intend to achieve better operational efficiency and improve the profit. This slide offers some examples of our prioritized products and new products.
Please take a look at your convenient time. Thank you very much for your attention.