The 14th annual exchange between the Japan Electrical Manufacturers' Association (JEMA) and China Electrical Appliance Association (CHEAA) was held in Beijing on September 25, 2015. This meeting brought together Kiyoshi EBIZUKA, president of JEMA, Satoshi Tanaka, director of Home Electrical Appliances Department under JEMA, Eto Kazuya, vice director of Home Electrical Appliances Department and director of General Planning Department under JEMA, Jiang Feng, president of CHEAA, Wang Lei, vice president of CHEAA, and Xu Dongsheng, Secretary General of CHEAA.
At the meeting, JEMA and CHEAA exchanged issues including overall industry development, domestic economic trends, and latest policies and regulations in this field on both sides.
Jiang Feng, president of CHEAA and Kiyoshi EBIZUKA, president of JEMA both delivered a speech for the meeting concerning the long history of exchange between these two associations, the macroeconomic performance on both sides, and their expectation towards the next meeting.
Xu Dongsheng, Secretary General of CHEAA, introduced the trend of China household electrical appliance industry in 2015. Wan Chunhui, director of department of standards and regulations under CHEAA, introduced China's polices involving home appliance industry. And Wang Lei, vice president of CHEAA, introduced revisions on the energy-efficiency standards for rice cookers in China.
JEMA gave a report titled Trend in Japan White Goods Industry based on statistics of 2014 at the meeting. According to the report, Japan's home appliance industry saw a decrease in consumption for the first time in the past two years, with sales of white goods down to 2.13 trillion yen accounting for 87.7% of last year's, affected by early purchase and overdraft triggered by a hike in Japan's consumption tax since April, 2014. Shipments of air conditioners and refrigerators went down for the first time in the past three years, and shipments of washing machines went down for the first time in the last five years. In 2014, the shipment volume of air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines were approximate 8.09 million, 3.75 million and 4.29 million respectively, accounting for 85.9%, 80.5%, and 85.2% of last year's sales respectively. Large capacity refrigerators were gaining popularity, with the market share of refrigerators with internal volume greater than 401L taking up 44.9%. Laundry dryers, with sales of 1.13 million accounting for 26.4% of the total sales for washing machines, were also on a trend towards large capacity ones. As to other products, JEMA said upright vacuum cleaners and smart vacuum cleaners were expanding market as many households were planning to buy a new vacuum cleaner. Besides, new kitchen appliances including oil-free cookers were promoted in Japan for the first time while smart home appliances attracted tremendous attention of the public.
JEMA also introduced revisions on standards for refrigerators/freezers, implementation of Reuse and Recycling Law for Japan's home appliance industry, and standards and regulations on Japan's smart home appliances. Revised in accordance with IEC standards, JIS standards for refrigerators/freezers refined testing methods for power consumption. In addition, a new target baseline for refrigerator industry was expected to be made in 2015.