Japanese Sales, Orders Increase 55%

Manufacturing Engineering, Feb 2005

Orders of machine tool equipment for Japanese builders rose in September, as sales also continued on a healthy growth curve, according to the latest figures from the Japan Machine Tool Builders' Association (JMTBA, Tokyo).

Japanese builders' orders in September totaled 111,839 million yen, up 54.8% from a year earlier and up 7.3% from the previous month. Total orders for 2004 through September hit 898,444 million yen, an increase of 43.8% versus the same a year ago.

Sales totaled 109,541 million yen, up 39.9% from the prior month and up 24% from September 2003. Total sales for Japanese builders for the first nine months of 2004 reached 705,487 million yen, up 22.6% over the same period for 2003. Order backlog amounted to 515,307 million yen, which represented a 1.4% drop from the prior month but an increase of 49.6% from a year earlier.