Japan Cemented Carbide Tool Shipment Keeps Steady in November

Japanese domestic shipment value of cemented carbide tools totaled 24.4 billion yen in November, up by 33.3% from a year earlier, according to Japan Cemented Carbide Tool Manufacturers’ Association. The shipment value represented year-to-year plus for 12 straight months thanks to the steady demand for cutting tools, especially exporting demand for indexable insert chip. Tool demand keeps favorable mainly from automobile industry.

Cutting tool’s shipment kept above 18 billion yen since June 2010 expect for August. The shipment volume of indexable insert chip, the main item among cutting tools, hit record 25 million chips per month in June and kept the level expect for August. Chip demand seems strong especially for export. Indexable insert chip represents 75% in Japanese total export of cemented carbide tools in value.