Park Electrochemical Corp. Announces the Establishment of a Business Center In China

LAKE SUCCESS, New York, May 17, 2001….Park Electrochemical Corp. (NYSE – PKE announced that it is establishing a business center in China to support the rapidly growing customer demand for advanced multilayer printed circuitry materials in China. The business center will operate under the name Nelco Products (Wuxi) Co. Ltd. (“Nelco Wuxi”)
Nelco Wuxi will be located approximately 140 kilometers northwest of Shanghai in the Wuxi-Singapore Industrial Park in Wuxi, China and will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Park’s Nelco Products Pte. Ltd. business unit located in Singapore. Nelco Wuxi will provide advanced multilayer circuitry materials, as well as customer and technical support services, to leading electronics manufacturing customers in the greater Shanghai area and ultimately throughout China. These advanced materials will be produced by Nelco Products Pte. Ltd. in Singapore and shipped to the Nelco Wuxi facility, which will provide local materials stocking, as well as finishing, customization and value-added manufacturing services for the China market. The Nelco Wuxi facility is expected to be operational during the Company’s third fiscal quarter ending November 25, 2001.

Brian Shore, Park’s President and CEO, stated, “We are seeing a rapidly growing market in China for advanced materials used to fabricate complex, high reliability, high layer count printed circuit boards used in telecommunications, networking and internet infrastructure equipment applications. At Park, we believe that physical closeness to our customers is a very important factor in being able to fully understand our customers’ requirements and to properly serve their needs. Since the Shanghai-Nanjing corridor is widely recognized as the emerging region for advanced multilayer printed circuit board fabrication in China, we believe it is necessary and important for our Company to have a local on-the-ground presence and capability in that region. We believe that our on-the-ground technical resources in the Shanghai area combined with our commitment to Customer Intimacy will greatly facilitate our success in rapidly growing our business in China. We are very excited about the China market, and our decision to establish Nelco Products (Wuxi) Co. Ltd. is a reflection of our commitment to the high technology electronics manufacturing industry in China!”

Certain portions of this press release may be deemed to constitute forward looking statements that are subject to various factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from Park’s expectations. Such factors include, but are not limited to, general conditions in the electronics industry, Park’s competitive position, the status of Park’s relationships with its customers, economic conditions in international markets, the cost and availability of utilities, and the various factors set forth under the caption “Factors That May Affect Future Results” after Item 7 of Park’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended February 27, 2000.

Park Electrochemical Corp. is a leading global designer and producer of electronic materials used to fabricate complex multilayer printed circuit boards and interconnection systems. Park specializes in advanced materials for high layer count circuit boards and high-speed digital broadband telecommunications, internet and networking applications. Park’s electronic materials business operates through fully integrated business units in Asia, Europe and North America. The Company’s major manufacturing facilities are located in Singapore, England, France, Germany, New York, Arizona and California. Park’s electronic materials business operates under the “Nelco” name.