Japanese industrial firms Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said Thursday they would merge their thermal power businesses by 2014 as they take on global giants Siemens and General Electric.

The pair said they would set up a joint venture company that was 65 percent owned by Mitsubishi with the remaining 35 percent held by Hitachi, creating a combined firm with about 1.1 trillion yen ($13 billion) in annual sales.

Japanese industrial firms Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said Thursday they would merge their thermal power businesses by 2014 as they take on global giants Siemens and General Electric.

The pair said they would set up a joint venture company that was 65 percent owned by Mitsubishi with the remaining 35 percent held by Hitachi, creating a combined firm with about 1.1 trillion yen ($13 billion) in annual sales.

Japanese high-tech firm Hitachi Wednesday unveiled an electric motor that does not use "rare earths", aiming to cut costs and reduce dependence on imports of the scarce minerals from China.

The prototype 11 kilowatt motor does not use magnets containing rare earths and is expected to go into commercial production in 2014, the company said.

Japanese high-tech firm Hitachi on Tuesday said it plans to slash its annual costs 5.0 percent by 2015, or about $5.43 billion a year, to compete with rivals including General Electric.

The announcement by Hitachi, whose products range from microchips to railways, comes after the company said last month that its nine-month net profit dived more than 61.0 percent year-on-year, amid a strong yen and weaker demand from Europe and China.

Japanese high-tech giant Hitachi said it will stop making televisions by the end of September as intense price competition hurts TV earnings at many electronics manufacturers worldwide.

Hitachi will "terminate television production by the end of September" in Japan, said Sayori Nishino, a company spokeswoman, having already outsourced overseas TV manufacturing to foreign firms in 2009.

Japanese high-tech maker Hitachi said Wednesday it is considering shifting all television production to foreign outsourcing firms by March as part of a broad strategy to increase profitability.

Hitachi, whose products range from microchips to nuclear power equipment, has not made a final decision about the plan, a spokesman added.