Bridgestone Corp.’s (TYO:5108) Eco Loop, a hose product for use with EcoCute water heating systems, has received a Good Design Award for 2019. Eco Loop hosing is used to connect an EcoCute system’s hot water storage unit with its heat pump unit, which allows for heat exchange. As hoses for EcoCute are in contact with boiling water over a long...
Japan’s shipments of rubber products this July came to a total value of roughly 211.04 billion yen ($1.97 billion), rising by 6.4 percent over the same month last year, according to figures put together by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). Looking at individual product types, automotive tires up made 53 percent of the total here, and saw...
Forecasts for belt and hose sales in 2019 are showing a pessimistic outlook despite what have been favorable market conditions so far this year. These findings come from TGS, an association of industrial rubber product wholesalers in the greater Kanto region. Conducting an independent survey as part of a report on belt and hose trade flows for 2018, TGS found...
Driven by factors such as the U.S.–China trade war, China’s economic slowdown is becoming clearer as of late. And these trade tensions, as well as the related sense of deceleration in domestic Chinese conditions, are now having a visible impact on trade figures. Business conditions for electrical and electronic parts saw a negative trend through to the end of last...
Plastic hose manufacturer Toyox Co. Ltd. has launched two new products: an all-plastic hose connector that excels at chemical resistance and a fluorine hose that offers improved flexibility to help boost operational efficiency. Patents have been registered for both of these products. Using hoses to pipe acidic or alkaline chemical solutions is currently an area of concern for the industry,...
Manufacturers of industrial rubber products have seen their revenues of late driven down by rising distribution and raw material costs. The impact of this has been particularly large for rubber and plastic hoses, which require significant labor to transport due to their shape and so incur higher delivery costs than other rubber products. This has then combined with sharp cost...
