Holiday time!

Hi there. How was your Christmas holiday?

As usual, we spent the day with my family having a party. According to the news on TV, most families spent time together at home. Because of the depression, a lot of children missed their Christmas presents; which I think is a bit harsh for little ones.

My 13 year old daughter honestly believed in Santa until last year and every Christmas Eve, she wrote a note to tell him what she wanted for Christmas and put it under her pillow before going to bed. This is for Santa to make sure he gives the right present to the right child when he visits her in the middle of night. Until the year before, it was toys and/or books; so it was not hard for us to get them but last year it was a “mobile phone”. You can guess how we, as parents felt. In the end, we bought some books instead with a note from Santa saying “you talk to your mum & dad about a mobile phone when you go to secondary school”. How disappointed she looked when she got up in the morning! She was very upset there was no mobile phone she could see and she was crying for a while. However, she interpreted that message in her way and said that Santa told her to ask her mum & dad for a mobile phone when she reached 13. Yes, we had to buy one on the day when she started secondary school…

Someone must have told her the truth about Santa this year but she pretended not to know it and still wrote a note saying “Should I ask for an iPod this year?” We are older and wiser, you know. We told her that Santa is very busy giving presents to younger children and is not coming to our place this year. Instead we bought a present each to swap within the family.

Now Christmas is over and we only have a few more days to the end of the year. This is the last newsletter for the Year 2008. What was the year like for you?

At JPC, we met new customers and have sold a great number of cars worldwide. We are very happy that our client base is expanding every year. Unfortunately, in the last half of the year after the financial crisis started in the USA, the Japanese yen got too high too quickly for customers overseas to buy cars from us. Here is my wish for next year: this appreciation of the yen eases or the yen weakens a bit even and the whole world economy, not only in Japan, turns for the better.
However, the exterior environment is not something we can personally control. Whatever happens around us, we have to provide attractive products and good services to our customer. We have a few new projects we want to start from next year. We have been preparing for them since the last half of the year. Keep watching!

We close our office on Saturday, 27th December and opens again from Tuesday, 6th January. Our office will remain closed between 28th December and 5th January. None of us is going to be in the office so we cannot be contacted. Thank you very much for your understanding. If your cars are in our yard, they will be safe: please do not worry about them. They are in safe hands. For the customers whose cars are still waiting for the shipment, we will contact you as soon as we know.

Well, thank you very much to all the readers of the newsletter and my blog. I promise to write more interesting and informative articles next year, too; so please continue with your support.

Happy new year to all!


★ Japanese used car stock : http://jpctrade.com/stock/index.html
★ JPCTRADE Home page : http://jpctrade.com/
★ JPCTRADE Blog : http://jpctrade.blogspot.com/

(Editor)
JPC TRADE CO.,LTD.
3B YS-Building, 1-2-2 Botan, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association (JUMVEA)
TEL : +81-3-5245-7731
FAX : +81-3-3643-4955

Future of the “Big Three” and the world car market

The US’s “Big Three”, General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Chrysler Corporation, are hovering between life and death. They are asking for a maximum of US$34 billion (\3200 billion) of US government funds but some members of Congress are critical of the automakers’ lenient restructuring and are opposed to saving them; members of public have a chilly view toward this crisis too. However, if even one of them goes into liquidation, the impact to the world economy will be incredible; so everyone in the world is holding their breath to see the final decision.

All of the Big Three are in danger financially but especially General Motors and Chrysler Corporation are in a critical state. Without the government’s help, there is a good chance of GM going bankrupt before the year ends. Richard Wagoner, the chairman is asking for an immediate cash injection of US$40 billion before the year ends. The government under President Bush was once critical but after thinking about the impact of the company’s bankruptcy, they are considering some financial assistance under the federal bankruptcy law. They are worried that the US economy will suffer major damage if both GM and Chrysler Co have to file for their bankruptcy and cannot achieve any drastic rehabilitation. Although they will not just disappear even if they go into liquidation, their cars are the products carrying their companies’ brand names and image. No one buys products of bankrupted companies. Their sales will drop even further and it will get harder to turn their business around.

Also, with the current credit shrinkage, some car parts manufacturers could also go bankrupt one after another. So even if the car assembly companies remain in business after their bankruptcy, without parts they cannot keep making cars. This is going to affect Japanese car manufacturers who have their assembly factories in the US. The other day, Honda’s CEO told the media that his company was increasing the shipping load of parts for stock from Japan. They used to get the parts from local manufacturers who were also heavily supplying the Big Three.

The biggest problem is that it is going to cause a lot of unemployment which will speed up the downward slide of individual consumption and this will eventually make this economic recession worse. In fact, if they go into liquidation, it might put us into a panic state like the Lehman shock and cause another financial crisis.

On the other hand, even with government’s help, unless they do some radical restructuring, there is a good chance they are going to face the same problem again. In the USA, car manufacturers are capable to produce 20 million cars but demand has dropped dramatically from its peak of 17 million and next year it is estimated to drop even further to 11 million. It is obvious that they have to reduce their supply so it is reported that the Big Three now have to slash their staff and have some large scale factory closures. They have not been making competitive products able to beat Japanese car manufacturers for a long time.

Anyway, for a while, demand of cars will get smaller in the USA and it is going to affect the world. In Europe, the demand is also expected to drop. Financial institutions there are also suffering from damage after the financial crisis at a similar or worse level as the USA. The factor which is making this global recession worse is the speed of the changes. One of the CEOs in Japan was saying, “The situation is changing everyday. We cannot wait & see for a week”. According to him, his workers complain that he changes what he had decided the day before.

In November, car sales in the USA were 37% and in Japan 27% less than compared with the same month the year before, which was the worst ever. Unfortunately there is no prospect of a recovery in the near future considering the unemployment situation. We are definitely facing the worldwide “era of unemployment”. The unemployment rate in the USA was 6.5% in October, which was the highest in the last 15 years and it is going to keep rising. In Japan, companies are rapidly controlling their employment starting with their part-timers.

In the world like this, to get the economy back, we need to create demand. To do so, we have to create more jobs like a new “New Deal programme”. The Americans are concentrating their hopes on their new President Barack Obama. In Japan, we have some good news. It is decided that automobile tonnage tax and automobile acquisition tax are cut temporally for low-emission vehicles. I hope this is going to stimulate consumers urge to buy new cars…


★ Japanese used car stock : http://jpctrade.com/stock/index.html
★ JPCTRADE Home page : http://jpctrade.com/
★ JPCTRADE Blog : http://jpctrade.blogspot.com/

(Editor)
JPC TRADE CO.,LTD.
3B YS-Building, 1-2-2 Botan, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association (JUMVEA)
TEL : +81-3-5245-7731
FAX : +81-3-3643-4955

Pirates of the Somalian Coast

At the moment, almost all the cars JPC export to Europe are shipped through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea. On the way there, around Somalia near the Red Sea is the area where the world highest number of robberies by pirates occur. In 2007, there were 44 cases, which was 2.2 times more than the previous year. In 2008, by the end of September, it had reached 66 cases already.

Until a few years ago, it usually happened in Asia, mainly around Indonesia and the Straits of Malacca; but now it is getting less and less every year thanks to the big effort of the countries around there to prevent the crime.

On the other hand, in Somalia, there has been civil conflict since 1990 and now it is more or less in a state of anarchy. They cannot control pirates. There, pirates can live a wealthy life so more fishermen have turned into pirates and they are committing new crimes everyday.

The Gulf of Aden, sitting at the north of the country, is an important choke point for marine traffic between Europe and Asia through the Red Sea. All marine vessels using the Suez Canal go through there. Especially lately, because of the economic development in emerging nations such as Russia, China and India, trade between Europe and Asia has increased suddenly; and more tankers and container ships go through the Gulf of Aden. The traffic volume of container ships has increased by 2.5 times within the 10 years up to 2007 and most of the ships went through the Gulf. I am worried if the number of thefts by pirates increases, it might affect cars we export from JPC; which might eventually cause trouble between us and our customers.

According to the media, the governments of the other countries and shipping companies are having headaches about this repetition of the incident of piracy around Somalia. Recently some vessels owned by Japanese shipping firms were attacked. Some shipping companies have now changed the route not going through the Suez Canal but going around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. However, because it takes a lot longer, so the fuel cost will be reflected on the freight cost.

If the domestic administration inside Somalia becomes stable and they start policing themselves, it would be the fundamental solution but at this stage we cannot expect that. All the other countries have to work together to protect the route. UN’s Security Council adopted a resolution doing other countries policing around the Somalian maritime border and navies from USA and member states of the European Union are already there. Unfortunately they are having difficulties stopping new pirates springing up one after another. Japan might have to send our Maritime Self-Defense Force one day to co-operate with the ships already there but under the Japanese Constitution, protecting foreign vessels is prohibited, so it is not very clear if it is going to happen in the near future.

We are in the 21st century. It is the time of convenience when not only marine transport, but air transport goes anywhere in the world. This is not the 17 century when “Pirates of the Caribbean” existed but the damage from the piracy we cannot prevent easily will be a serious issue for a while. When our customers buy cars from overseas, we advise them to buy marine insurance. Please protect your car from nasty pirates with insurance.


★ Japanese used car stock : http://jpctrade.com/stock/index.html
★ JPCTRADE Home page : http://jpctrade.com/
★ JPCTRADE Blog : http://jpctrade.blogspot.com/

(Editor)
JPC TRADE CO.,LTD.
3B YS-Building, 1-2-2 Botan, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association (JUMVEA)
TEL : +81-3-5245-7731
FAX : +81-3-3643-4955

Honda’s withdrawal from Formula One

Last week, Honda, a Japanese car manufacturer, announced that they are going to withdraw from F1 car race. Last year their team was ranked 8th in the F1 World Championship but they spent ₤147,000,000 (US$230,000,000) for the year which was the highest in the history. Honda’s F1 team, based in the UK, made ₤149,300,000, a 23% rise from the previous year. Within that, around ₤7,000,000 was from the sponsors but last year they boldly removed all the sponsors’ logos from their machine replaced by designs of the Earth to advertise their environmental charitable work. Their biggest cost was for the development and production of about 80 V8 Engines and the second biggest expense was the staff costs of ₤35,300,000. They kept employing specialists in design, production, engineering, etc. and the team has been spending over $300,000,000 so far, which was far too much for any one company to support.

I would like tell you about this famous story about Honda’s participation in F1. The company founder, the late Soichiro Honda was very impressed when he went to watch acrobatic flights when he was a child and wanted to work in the aviation industry in the future. Then he was sent out to an apprenticeship at a car repair company where he started learning about engines. After the WWⅡ, he started his own company, Honda Motor Co, Ltd to develop 2 wheeled vehicles. He then succeeded to make the original model of the “Cub” putting an engine on a bicycle. Hoping to be “World Number 1” one day, he thought about participating in bike races. It only took him 2 years before he entered “The Isle of Man Tourist Trophy Race”, the famous and the world’s oldest motor race in the UK; and became the top winner.

Next, Mr Honda thought about the change of his product lines from motorbikes to cars catching up in the tide of the times. However, Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry at that time was dead against his company moving into the car industry saying 2 to 3 car manufacturers should be enough for the country. So Mr Honda was prepared to fight with the government officials and declared in front of his employees: “At Honda, we have our great skills we have developed in motorbike races. A small motorbike company can make safe cars just as good as others. We have to show it to them. We became big through the races. We will use the same strategy when it comes to cars. We are going to win at the world top car race, which is ‘Formula One’!” He told about his dream. After many twists and turns (they were not making any stock cars), they marked their first victory at the Mexico Grand Prix in 1965. It was the best period of Honda’s F1.

Since then, although they missed some F1 races because of financial reasons, their underlying principle was always that “Honda became big through races” and participated at F1 as an engine supplier. This is still the “Honda spirit” implemented by late Mr Honda’s motto.

In Europe, F1 definitely is a brand name and to promote their business, it is worthwhile for car manufacturers to keep entering every race. It must be getting harder financially even when they consider the benefits the races bring them.

About this withdrawal, Honda’s chief director Mr Fukui said to the media that he and his company tried to prevent further damage by acting quickly to this downturn in the marketplace but now we need more efficient reallocation of our management resources”. The car industry is facing the harshest financial background ever because of the slower growth in new car sales and high Yen after the world-wide financial crisis. Honda already decided to reduce the numbers of the new cars produced by 140,000. In their UK factory, they are closing the factory for 2 months from February next year and downsizing in the UK and other countries.

I wonder what Toyota is going to do about F1.


★ Japanese used car stock : http://jpctrade.com/stock/index.html
★ JPCTRADE Home page : http://jpctrade.com/
★ JPCTRADE Blog : http://jpctrade.blogspot.com/

(Editor)
JPC TRADE CO.,LTD.
3B YS-Building, 1-2-2 Botan, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association (JUMVEA)
TEL : +81-3-5245-7731
FAX : +81-3-3643-4955

Consumption pattern of people with metabolic syndrome

Lately, it is getting too cold to go outside & do something. I know lack of exercise is not good for my health but I cannot stand the cold. I found this article in the newspaper the other day about the consumption pattern of people who have metabolic syndrome from lack of exercise and overeating.

Metabolic syndrome is a collective term for conditions like “Adipositas”, “Hyperpiesia”, “Diabetes”, “Hyperlipemia”, etc.; which are induced by obesity, especially the one caused by fat accumulated around internal organs. It is not just being fat but carrying fat around vital organs that is a problem. This is hard to tell from outside. Generally, if your waist measures more than 85cm for male, 90cm for female then you have Visceral adiposity and Metabolic syndrome.

So when people have Metabolic syndrome, what is their consumption pattern like? According to the newspaper, they do not worry about their appearance too much (isn’t it a bit rude to say something like this?). To be compared with non-metabolic syndrome people, they are not after good-quality products with tasteful design and they care about the brands less. However they are more eco-conscious and after things “kind to earth even if they are a bit inconvenient”.

In this survey, 16% of the people think they have Metabolic syndrome (Group A), 30% of them think they do not have Metabolic syndrome but are worried they might have it one day (Group B), 45% think they have no worry and 9% were not sure (Group C).

Checking their answers to the questions about their attitude towards consumption, people with Metabolic syndrome did not show much interest in quality and design of products. For example, to the question: “Do you like sophisticated shops?” 61% of Group C said “Yes” whereas 50% of Group A said so. To the question: “Are you interested in colours & designs?” 58% of Group B, 69% of Group C and 48% of Group A said “Yes”. To the question: “Do you buy well-known brand even if they are more expensive?” 27% of Group C and 22% of Group A said “Yes”.

On the other hand, they have higher environmental consciousness. “Are you worried about the way we waste energy and resources?” 87% of Group A, 83% of Group B and 81% of Group C said “Yes”. “Do you mind if your life get a bit inconvenient to protect our environment?” 79% of Group A said “No” which was a little bit higher than 75% of Group B and 76% of Group C.

So if we make something, not so fashionable & well-designed but simple & eco-friendly, they might attract people with the syndrome. It means, if it is for cars, people with the syndrome should like hybrid ones and imported cars which consume too much gas should not be popular among them. When I think about it, yes, it might be true.

I would like to think I do not have the syndrome yet but because I like hybrid cars, I might be secretly joining the group…


★ Japanese used car stock : http://jpctrade.com/stock/index.html
★ JPCTRADE Home page : http://jpctrade.com/
★ JPCTRADE Blog : http://jpctrade.blogspot.com/

(Editor)
JPC TRADE CO.,LTD.
3B YS-Building, 1-2-2 Botan, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association (JUMVEA)
TEL : +81-3-5245-7731
FAX : +81-3-3643-4955

Onset of a full-fledged winter

In Tokyo, where JPC’s office is, it is getting colder in the morning & evening. On TV, there was a report of the first snowfalls here & there across the country and I am feeling that a full-blown winter is not so far away.

I cannot believe we actually had those hot, humid days in summer when I feel this chill to my skin through thick layer of clothes. In Japan, the four seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn & Winter are dramatically different and the feeling of winter is to tolerate the cold weather. Especially when it snows, whether it falls heavily or not, we have to change our approach to driving and other daily chores.

On the 27th of August when it was still hot in the lowland, Japan Meteorological Agency reported that there was “Hatsukansetsu” on Mount Fuji (3776m) on the 9th of the month. It was the new record in 94 years. Until then, the earliest was on the 12th of August, 1914. Since the recording started in 1894, this was the earliest ever.

“Hatsukansetsu” is the time when a part of the mountain looks white with snow and they start checking after the hottest day each year. This year, the hottest day was on the 21st of July which was about 1 month earlier than usual. In average, “Hatsukansetsu” happens on the 14th of September and the last snowfall is on the 10th of July. It means every year Mount Fuji has about 2 months without snow. “Hatsukansetsu” is the time when the mountain looks white: why does snow look white? According to Japan Meteorological Agency, the centre of snow is small dust and dirt surrounded by ice crystal formed from water vapour in the air. The ice crystals get bigger with chilled water vapour and become snowflakes. Snowflakes are clear but when they get together they look white with the diffused reflection of light.

When snow falls, if the ground temperature is high, it turns into “rain”. If it is not completely melted, it is called “mizore”, snowy rain. “Mizore” is grouped as snow in the weather classification.

There are different shapes of snow depending on the conditions in the atmosphere and depending on their shape the quality differs. “Kona-yuki”, powdery snow falls when it is cold & dry and “Botan-yuki”, large flakes of snow fall when it is warm & humid. When the crystals get pushed back & forth into the air by ascending air currents, they gather a lot of water vapour and turn into “arare”, hailstones. “Arare” are 2 – 5mm across ice balls and if they are 5mm or more across, they are called “hyo”.

In Japan, we have a lot of vocabulary for seasonal & natural phenomenon which means they are very important for Japanese people. However lately when it snowed on Mount Fuji in mid-summer and when we have warm enough days in winter without coats, we cannot always “feel” the seasons. Even Japanese people do not always understand the difference in these words. According to my children, they do not teach these at school in detail. I think it is a shame. This is a part of our culture and we really should make more effort to pass it along to the new generations.


★ Japanese used car stock : http://jpctrade.com/stock/index.html
★ JPCTRADE Home page : http://jpctrade.com/
★ JPCTRADE Blog : http://jpctrade.blogspot.com/

(Editor)
JPC TRADE CO.,LTD.
Kato building 4F, 1-1-2 Furuishiba, Koto-ku, Tokyo
Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association (JUMVEA)
TEL : +81-3-5245-7731
FAX : +81-3-3643-4955