Japan heavily dependent on China for imported items, report says, The level of reliance twice as much as US dependence on China

[xizhimen]

Japan heavily dependent on China for imported items, report says​

Shipping containers at Lianyungang port, in China's Jiangsu province. | AFP-JIJI

98.8% of all imports of laptop and tablet computers and 85.7% mobile phones are from China

Feb 3, 2022

Japan’s imported goods have been heavily dependent on China, which accounted for 23% of all items imported from around the world in 2019, the Cabinet Office said Thursday.

In a report on world economic trends, the government agency compared Japan’s degree of dependence on imports from China — sometimes euphemized as the “world’s factory” — with Germany’s dependence on the Unites States.

The report warned that “the country’s import structure is risky.”

The reported stated that compared with the United States and Germany, it would be more difficult for Japan to find substitutes for Chinese-made goods if supply were to run short.
For Japan, imports from China made up 98.8% of all imports of laptop and tablet computers and 85.7% for mobile phones.

Meanwhile, the share of shoes imported from China came to 66.0% in 2019, sharply down from 91.7% in 2009.

“In line with China’s industrial advancement, Japan’s imports from China are shifting from labor-intensive products to capital-intensive products that require technologies,” the report said.

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Japan flags vulnerability to China supply chain constraints, The level of reliance twice as much as US dependence on China​

Yoshiaki Nohara
Bloomberg

February 04, 2022 16:47 pm +08

(Feb 4): Japan flagged its vulnerability to supply-side constraints in China in a report showing that more than 1,000 import items are heavily dependent on its biggest trading partner.

China had a more than 50% share in 1,133 categories of imported goods, or 23% of the value of Japan’s imports in 2019, according to a trade analysis by the Cabinet office released on Thursday (Feb 3).

The level of reliance was about twice as much as US dependence on China, the report said.

The analysis comes as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government is expected to introduce an economic security bill later this month. The bill aims to strengthen supply chains, ensure the security of core infrastructure, enhance research and development, and tighten information disclosure for patents, Kishida said on Friday in Tokyo.

“We will improve the autonomy of our economic structure and make our technology superior and essential in order to protect our security,” he said. “Economic security is an urgent matter and a key pillar” of the administration’s agenda.

Japan’s reliance on China was most pronounced in household electronics items, such as personal computers, tablets and cellphones, again outweighing the corresponding levels of dependence for the US and Germany, the report showed.

“Kishida sees cutting reliance on China as an important theme,” said Koya Miyamae, an economist at SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. “As supply-side crunches continue, I think Japan will be trying to restructure its production capacity among its allies.”

While the report also showed that the overall level of reliance was little changed from a decade earlier, global supply snarls during the coronavirus pandemic added to calls for more resilient supply lines and less reliance on China.

Japan flags vulnerability to China supply chain constraints

(Feb 4): Japan flagged its vulnerability to supply-side constraints in China in a report showing that more than 1,000 import items are heavily dependent on its biggest trading partner.China had a more than 50% share in 1,133 categories of imported goods, or 23% of the value of Japan’s imports in...

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