Japan: imports from Italy supported by 'new sectors'
During the first nine months of 2005, Japan's overall imports from Italy rose by 2.3% compared to the same period 2004 and stand at 5,303 million US dollars, whereas Japanese exports to Italy fell by 9.4% to 4,366 million dollars.
Japan's world imports grew by 14.8% to 380,507 million dollars, and exports increased by 6.2% to touch the 440,421 million mark.
By geographical area, imports from China continued to show strong growth at +18.5% and +36% from the OPEC area, while import growth from the USA was more moderate (+3.9%). Germany (+8.7%) is above the average recorded in the EU (+3.7%), but France (+2.6%) and Italy (+2.3%) were below. However, Japanese exports were depressed by trading outlets in the EU (-1.1%) with above average increases only when headed directly for China (7.7%), Taiwan (9.3%) and OPEC countries (18.3%).
As to imports from Italy, an overview of product categories confirms that the moment is good for sectors Japan has recently rediscovered and which offer good support to compensate for the losses recently recorded in the fashion segments and part of the agricultural and food industry. Over the nine months, encouraging signals in fashion come only for leatherwear (+12.5%) and jewelry (1.9%), with other segments more or less stable or in decline, such as fabric garments (+0.9%) and knitwear (-4.7%). The agricultural and food industry continues to give conflicting signals: drinks -4% (including wines -4.8%), peeled tomatoes and other vegetables +10.7%, olive oil +5.8%, pasta -5.6%. A downturn for automobiles of -15.9%, precision tools -1.9%, and furniture -9.4%.
Japan's rediscovery of some of Italy's industrial sectors is comforting and they are again becoming major exports. A positive trend for the Italian chemical segment with pharmaceuticals at +19.5%, organic chemical products at +12.2%, cosmetics at +19.7%. Electric machines are doing very well at +31.6%, and the 11.4% increase in ceramic products and 13.9% in tires is worthy of note.
(Source: Ice Tokyo)
