International Jewellery Tokyo 2016 (IJT)

Duration
2016/01/20〜2016/01/23
Hall
Tokyo Big Sight
Booth
B5-02
Exhibition Information

We had exhibited at the 27th International Jewelry Tokyo, held at the Tokyo Big Sight, for 4 days from 20/01/2016 to 23/01/2016. 

 Starting from the depreciation of Chinese Yuen, a negative chain doesn’t stop at the world since the New Year. Because of the rise in interest rates by FRB, first time in nine years in December, exchange rate of Chinese Yuan against U.S. dollars does not stop to fall by having a stronger observation that the U.S. dollar is advantageous than Chinese Yuan.Rapid Chinese Yuan depreciation was concerned to lead capital outflow from China and to cause further slowdown of the Chinese economy. This atmosphere was disgusted in the Shanghai Stock Exchange and caused stock price to fall every day. And the market has experienced exceptional situation which was caused shutdown of trading after 30 minutes since opening by the circuit breaker every day. This Shanghai stock market plunge did spread to global stock markets and caused a sudden descent in the price of shares at the same time. Nikkei Average has been plunged also, and it seemed to be unstoppable even it became below 17,000 levels.

 In addition to the slowdown of the demand among China and emerging countries, the harsh situation of the Middle East countries brought the price of the crude oil lower than US$30 per barrel, cheapest in 12 years and cheaper than after Lehman Shock. In response to this, resource-related stock of the world became debacle, and management anxiety of the companies in the resource-rich countries has emerged. Guarantee charges rose remarkably in the CDS market which traded the credit risk of the company.This indicates that the market judge a default risk would increase. Other resources which are deeply involved with our industry, such as gold, platinum including copper, had been influenced by decline of crude oil price, and price of these resources were been pushed lower, also.

 The investment money goes to relatively safe assets, such as Japanese Yen or developed countries’ government bond, from crude oil or stocks which are thought to be high risk assets, now. Japanese Yen became 117 levels. And, a newly issued 10-year government bond yield of an index of long-term interest rates in the Tokyo market on 14th dropped to 0.190 percent. It smashed the lowest record. There is uncertainty regarding the future of world economy, and it seems that people are struggling hard to avoid risks.

Even though IJT was held under such circumstance, as the biggest exhibition in Japan, expectation was high. But, as a result, there seemed to be fewer guest than last year.And, it was clear that China’s economy did slowdown, and the number of buyers from China had decreased drastically. This affected on luxury goods sales in particular, and it seemed to cause sales slump of expensive items. Since Chinese buyers played a key role and driving force in sales of luxury items, the future trend is worried about. Number of buyers from other countries decreased also, and I didn’t see the crowd like previous year. 

However, it seemed to be the jewelry show that we could see and feel a sign of the revival of Japanese companies.And, I had an impression that the Japanese companies were energetic. Many Japanese buyers came in the early morning on the first day, and looked for something interesting like they competed with each other. The exhibition hall did look crowded with those who wanted to replenish their stock because they had made good sales at the end of the last year, and those who wanted to find something new for their future strategy. Atmosphere became very similar to the jewelry show about 10 years ago, and I was able to feel this was just like a previous Japanese exhibition. I felt that all buyers who came to this exhibition were very positive.They were looking for something new or were seeking new strategy, in order to break the status quo. The world economy is in recession now. And, it also gives great impact to our industry.

Furthermore, the economic globalization (people, product, capital, information, service and so on goes across the border freely) seems impossible to stop. I think that we are thrown into high levels of competition and it seems to be very difficult to survive.We will perceive this globalization as a big chance for growth of our business, and strive in order to give you a good advice, even though in this kind of chaos situation.Finally, we would like to give our sincere gratitude to our entire client who visited our booth in spite of this kind of difficult situation.