Automobile Companies
Nissan Motor (7201.T) and
Suzuki Motor (7269.T) are seeing strong sales growth in China and India. Nissan's joint venture Dongfeng Nissan Passenger Vehicle Co. is seeing brisk demand for Tiida and other subcompacts after China cut the automobile sales tax for 1.6-liter or smaller cars by half to 5% in late January. The Nissan joint venture's sales were up 51% YoY in February for the second straight month of record sales. Suzuki Motor saw its Chinese sales in February climb 19% to YoY above 18,000 units, the first time in six months. In India, Suzuki's sales recovered to 71,000 units in February for the second consecutive monthly record, and rebounding sharply from the 27% drop to 47,700 units in November.
Honda (7267.T) also saw sales grow 12.5% to 5,400 units in February.
To keep pace with the recovery, Nissan increased production in China by 47.9%. At Honda, output there rose 5.7%, a record high for February.
Mazda Motor (7261) production soared 48.6% to 10,000 units, the first increase in eight months.
Toyota Motor (7203.T) however is not doing so well in China. Toyota saw its Chinese sales fall 7% in February to 35,000 units, while its Indian tally dropped 10.5% to 3,000 units.
Nikkei
Basic Materials
Aggressive buying from China has pushed the price of spot price of
cadmium up 126% over the past two months, as China began stockpiling the metal used for batteries and pigments.
Basic materials firms are also boosting China exports.
Mitsubishi Materials (5711.T) recently began exporting copper ingots to China at a pace of around 10,000 tons a month. At Pan Pacific Copper, a joint venture between
Nippon Mining & Metals Co. and
Mitsui Mining & Smelting (5706), copper exports to China this month will likely double from a year earlier. Japan's total copper exports to China soared 130% from a year earlier in January, lifting its total copper exports in that month by more than 70%.
Tosoh(4042.T) plans to boost output of an insulation material for consumer electronics and homes as exports, which account for 70% of its production of the material, pick up, particularly to China. To meet improved demand from Chinese consumer electronics makers,
Asahi Kasei(3407) has stepped up production of resin materials at a South Korean plant to almost 100% of capacity.
With various infrastructure projects kicking off as part of the stimulus package, demand for construction machinery is also on the rise. Exports of three of the four leading plastics, including polypropylene, all rose at least 80% on the year in February.
