Japan’s electronics industry suffers the first trade deficit in 22 years

According to reports from Japanese media, the electronics industry, which once supported Japan’s export of home appliances and electronic components, is expected to fall into a trade deficit for the first time in 2013. The trade deficit of related industries from January to September this year was about 800 billion yen, compared with a trade surplus of about 220 billion yen in the same period of last year. As Japan continues to shift production overseas, coupled with the depreciation of the yen, exports have been sluggish, while imports of smart phones and other products have increased. The electronics industry and automobiles have been supporting Japan's exports, but large-scale investments for Japan in the future will be difficult to predict. Therefore, the trade deficit situation may continue.

According to the statistics of the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industry Association (JEITA) and the Japan Electrical Manufacturers Association (JEMA), home appliances such as TV sets and refrigerators are added to electronic components such as semiconductors, and the trade balance of Japan’s entire electronics industry was in the 1990s. At the beginning, it reached a surplus of 9 trillion yen. However, since the collapse of the Japanese bubble economy, after a “lost 20 years,” the surplus has dropped significantly. In 2012, this trade balance barely maintained a surplus of nearly 40 billion yen, but in this year's statistics it is expected that the first deficit since 1991 when comparable statistics were available.

Transfer of production to overseas influence <br> <br> in 20 years after the collapse of Japan's bubble economy among the affected IT (information technology) bubble, etc., exported to Japan, although the electronics industry growth have appeared once, but since Lehman After the crisis of 2008, the production of electronic companies officially began to shift overseas, and the amount of exports has significantly decreased.

TVs that used to be the locomotives of Japan’s electronics industry experienced a trade deficit of 110 billion yen between January and September this year. Most of Matsushita's products sold in Japan are imported from countries such as Malaysia. Although the Japanese market is still dominated by Japanese manufacturers, the products themselves are basically manufactured overseas.

Nearly 80% of the Japanese TV market in 1991 was produced in Japan, but by 2012, in the flat-panel TV market with a market size of 6.4 million units, imported products had accounted for 6.2 million units.

The sharp increase in smartphone imports also has a major impact. According to the statistics of the Japan Information and Communications Industry Association (CIAJ), in the year 2008 when smartphones were not yet universally available, the mobile phone's trade deficit was about 200 billion yen, and by 2012 it had expanded to nearly 1,200 billion yen. As of September this year, it has exceeded 1 trillion yen. Sony’s withdrawal of smart phone production from Japan in March this year, coupled with factors such as the introduction of Apple’s iPhone by NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest telecommunications operator, is expected to further increase the deficit figure.

Advantages of electronic components can hardly fill gaps <br><br> Japanese companies have strong competitiveness of "electronic components and devices" from January to September this year, the trade surplus is 221 billion yen, which is a decrease of 5 year-on-year %. The orders received by the six major Japanese manufacturers from July to September hit a record high by quarterly statistics and maintained a good momentum, but most of the increase in production relied on overseas production and could not make up for the reduction in exports of home appliances and other products.

The reduction in domestic production also has a negative impact on domestic employment in Japan. According to the statistics of Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the number of employees of motor and electrical appliance manufacturers in Japan, including temporary workers, was 290,000 by 2010, a 30% reduction from 1995. At the same time, auto makers only decreased by 10%, and there was a clear contrast between the two.

Despite the fact that the entire machine makers are constantly shifting their production overseas, due to the rise of Korean companies, there are still many Japanese companies that have a significant loss in the overall business revenue and expenditure on a global scale. In the future, it will become a topic for Japanese companies to take advantage of refined technologies and gain a firm foothold in the field of products and components for new types of businesses such as wearable terminals.