Yamazaki Mazak Uses US-Korea Free Trade Agreement to Export Machine Tools to South Korea

From September 2012, Yamazaki Mazak will export the machine tools produced in the US plant (Kentucky) to South Korea, and the small and medium-sized lathes sold in South Korea will also be changed from Japanese manufacturing to American manufacturing. The major reason is that in March this year, the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) came into effect, and South Korea cancelled an 8% tariff on US-made lathes. Currently, among Japanese companies, there is a growing trend to effectively utilize the U.S.-Korea FTA and optimize production systems. It is understood that Yamazaki Mazak produces a total of 28 models of lathes and multi-process automatic CNC machine tools in the US factory. As the yen continues to appreciate, American factories began exporting small and medium-sized lathes to Japan in October last year. In order to expand exports to Japan and South Korea, U.S. factories plan to increase production capacity next spring. On the other hand, Yamazaki Mazak's factory in Singapore is also making effective use of FTA, increasing production facilities in India and the ASEAN region, and optimizing the international production system in line with the trend of FTA and the Japanese yen market.