Japan’s machine tool orders in January, 2021: 88.6 billion yen

February 18, 2021

Japan Machine Tool Builders’ Association（JMTBA）announced the machine tool order amount of January on February 18th, 2021. Total amount of orders in January was 88.6 billion yen, decreased by 10.5％ from the previous month. Domestic order decreased by 17.1％ to 26.4 billion yen, and foreign order decreased by 7.4% to 62.2 billion yen.

Domestic order decreased from the previous month for the first time in two months. Year-on-year decreased for 26 consecutive months. It is expected that the cause of the decrease is that an emergency declaration was issued in January due to the re-expansion of COVID-19 in Tokyo and other regions, and companies refrained from capital investment in anticipation of subsidies.

Foreign order decreased from the previous month for the first time in three months, and year-on-year increased for the third consecutive month. By region, orders from China exceeded 25 billion yen for the second straight month. A recovery trend is also seen in countries around East Asia. On the other hand, a condition of ASEAN countries and India is weak. Besides, order amount from Europe exceeded 10 billion yen for the first time in two months, and there were signs of recovery in Germany, Italy and Turkey. North America fell below 15 billion yen for the first time in five months.