Electric Copper Cable Shipment Downs for 8 Months in Japan

Japanese domestic shipment of electric wire and cable was 71,400 tonnes of copper in June by Japanese 138 electric wire and cable makers those who belong to Japanese Electric Wire & Cable Makers’ Association, according to the quick estimation by the association. The shipment decreased by 2.6% from a year earlier and showed year-to-year down for 8 months in a row. The shipment volume kept high level but represented year-to-year decrease when the users minimized their procurement due to the upsurge of copper price. The shipment of optical fiber products increased by 2.6% to 2.17 million kilometers of fiber core in June from a year ago.Copper wire and cable shipment for construction markets has been in downtrend due to less demand from middle- and small-sized electric contractors when copper metal and electric cable prices stay at extremely high level. The same trend appeared for telecommunication, electric machine and appliances. The shipment was relatively steady for automobiles and power companies even though the year-to-year down.Optical fiber product shipment has shown year-to-year increase for 25 straight months and exceeded 2 million kilometers of fiber core for 4 months in a row. However, the domestic shipment has represented year-to-year down for 5 straight months. The domestic demand is stagnant compared with previous year. Another background is that the processing sites of optical fiber are shifted to overseas.