Synthetic rubber shipments are sluggish and many manufacturers are saying that it will be difficult to achieve a recovery at least by the end of the fiscal year. This comes as both tire and industrial goods applications, particularly automotive parts, continue to struggle. A certain degree of recovery is expected once inventory adjustments, which are said to be the main...
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has announced that the total sales value of rubber products for January-June totaled 1.256 trillion yen ($8.53 billion), up 12.0% from the same period last year. The situation, however, was somewhat mixed by product, and the increase was not overwhelming. In addition, price hikes led to a divergence in sales value from...
Shipment volume of rubber sheets (plates) may be showing signs of recovery: after falling 10.2% year-on-year in 2022 according to data compiled by the Japan Rubber Manufacturers Association, shipments turned positive in the January-March period of 2023, rising 1.6% year-on-year to 4,242 tons. Although automobile production did not fully recover in 2022 and was affected by inventory adjustments of parts,...
Demand for rubber hoses has been improving. According to the Japan Rubber Hose Manufacturers Association, the value of shipments in 2022 was 138.64 billion yen ($1.04 billion), up 0.4% and thus almost unchanged from the previous year. However, high-pressure hoses remained at a high level throughout the year, and automotive hoses, which account for 70% of the total, recovered in...
The Japan Glove Manufacturers Association has published its 2022 glove sales volume statistics for the Japanese domestic market. Household glove sales in 2022 remained flat at 83.19 million pairs, down 1% from the previous year. Only rubber gloves grew by 6% year-on-year, but none of the categories recovered to the 2019 levels prior to the coronavirus pandemic. In 2020, sales...
According to the Feb. 14 report on rubber product production and shipments published by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), the total value of rubber product shipments in 2022 (January-December) was 2.3 trillion yen ($22.72 billion), up 5.1% from the previous year, marking the second consecutive year of year-on-year growth. By product category, the value of rubber products...
