- At present, building materials are mainly imported into Japan from the U.S.A., Canada, Sweden and Finland. Wooden materials come from:
- North America 34.9%
- Southern Sea Countries 31.8%
- Malaysia 23.3%
- Northern Sea Countries 31.8%
- New Zealand 7.3%
- Others 4.7%
- Imports from Asian Countries are mainly woods, veener boarding, marble and building hardware supplies. They are mainly imported from Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.
- Rather than timber, value added materials such as veneer boarding and compound boarding from the U.S.A. and Malaysia have been increasing. Wooden flooring materials have also been imported lately. The percentage of finished wooden articles such as furniture etc. is 60% and logs 40% according to of wood import data.
- Permission from the Ministry of Construction is required for new materials to be imported, and it usually takes no less than 2 months for a judgement to be made. It will be necessary for such judgements to be made more swiftly in future.
- Each country has its own regulations for building materials. Unfortunately in Japan they are quite difficult to understand, and also very complicated to follow. Some foreign companies complain about Japanese regulations which make the cost itself and the total construction costs very high, and make exporting to Japan less attractive. Therefore, in order to bring the cost of building down, prompt deregulation will be needed.
- Following are the results of a questionnaire regarding building materials conducted by the Building Material Review Editing Committee.
- Companies deal with imported building materials 19%
- Companies do not deal with building materials 62%
- Companies will be importing building materials in future 18%
- Companies will be establishing a business for building materials in the near future 22%
- Companies will be going to reduce the business for building materials because of low possibility for gaining profit 9%
- no reply 49%
- There is a problem; in fact, big wastage has occured due to the difference in size between other Asian countries and Japan. Given an aggressive attitude on the part of businesspeople in the field of building materials and a great deal of support extended by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, and the Ministry of Construction, the construction field has not been seriously affected by the imported goods at this stage. However, this situation will gradually change.
- Japan is lagging behind in the utilization of marble and artificial marble. It is true that marble is only used for hotels, or buildings, and we seldom find marble household articles. From this point of view, we can expect future demand for marble bathrooms or lavatories goods such as tiles. Marble is only imported from Italy, Malaysia, the Philippines and China so far, and to a small extent. Marble from China appears to be quite reasonable pricewise.
- Nails, bolts and screw are also imported from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and other countries. Articles to be made according to JIS (Japan Industrial Standard) are mainly used for Japanese Market. 210,000 tons nails and bolts etc. worth 235,649,000 U.S. dollars were imported from China during the 9 months between January and September 1995.
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