Japanese Electric Cable Export and Import Decrease in F2009

Japanese electric cable export decreased by 14% to FOB 263.6 billion yen in fiscal 2009 ended in March 2010 compared with fiscal 2008 while the import decreased by 16.6% to CIF 418.5 billion yen, including optical fiber and optical fiber cable, according to Japanese Electric Wire & Cable Makers’ Association. The export widely shrank for high-voltage power cable while kept increasing for optical fiber cable. The import continued to decrease for transport machine cables.

High-voltage power cables are mainly applied to power transmission infrastructure projects. The import dropped by 60.4% to 9.5 billion yen from Asian countries in fiscal 2009 from fiscal 2008. In fiscal 2008, there were 10.8 billion yen export for China and 4.8 billion yen for Singapore. In fiscal 2009, the export was 3.9 billion yen for China and 400 million yen for Singapore. For Middle East countries, the export decreased by 4.4% to 19.4 billion yen in fiscal 2009 from fiscal 2008, 13.9 billion yen of which was for Qatar.

Optical fiber cable export decreased by 6% to 13.9 billion yen for North America and by 31.2% to 12.4 billion yen for Asia in fiscal 2009 from fiscal 2008. On the other hand, there was a large shipment of total 2.8 billion yen for Oceania countries in fiscal 2009. The export also expanded by 3.6 times to 5.1 billion yen for Middle East and doubled to 4.5 billion yen for Europe.

As to the import, out-in of transport machine cables decreased mainly for automotive wiring harness in response to the number shrinkage of Japanese car production in fiscal 2009. However, the year-to-year decrease range narrowed to 8.8% compared with 20.2% minus in fiscal 2008 or 36.4% minus in CY2009. The demand has recovered quarter by quarter.