Japanese cemented carbide tools shipment increased by 3.4% to 24.7 billion yen in October from a year earlier, according to Japan Cemented Carbide Tool Manufacturers’ Association. The shipmend decreased by 1.9% from September. The shipment slightly decreased from the previous month but kept the recent high level mainly for cutting tools. The demand seems to be favorable for cutting tools for automotive components.
The shipment represented year-on-year increase for 23 straight months through October. The shipment remained high level at 24-26 billion yen per month since June 2011. The shipment of cutting tools kept the high level at 18-20 billion yen per month for 5 straight months. The shipment volume of the main item among cutting tools, insert chip was slightly lower in October than monthly record of 29.6 million chips in June 2011 and slightly less than monthly 29 million chips for July-September. However, the shipment volume still kept very high level. The total export value kept more than 7 billion yen for 5 straight months despite of extremely strong yen trend, 75% of which was accounted by insert chips. Offshore demand seems to be strong for insert chips. Domestic production of the main material for cemented carbide tools, cemented carbide alloy maintained high level at around benchmark of 500 tonnes per month since June 2011. Stable shipment of material alloy suggests cemented carbide tool shipment could keep steady for a while though negative impact of flood in Thailand is concerned.