August 2011

The Japan Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Industry Association
43rd Ordinary General Assembly heldVol. 11-03- A business plan in fiscal 2011 approved On June 3, JRAIA held its 43rdordinary general assembly at Hotel
Laforet Tokyo.
In the meeting, a business reportand financial results in fiscal 2010 aswell as a business and budget plan infiscal 2011 were deliberated andadopted. Katsuhiko Fujiwara, senior vice-president of Panasonic Home Appliances Co., wasappointed the new chairman, replacing the previous chairman Hidetoshi Arima of Sanyo ElectricCo.,Ltd.
Chairman Fujiwara gave an inauguration speech as follows;Thank you for participating in the general assembly today. I greatly appreciate your continued
support for JRAIA activities. First of all, I'd like to express my deep sympathies for those who wereaffected by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11. A triple calamity of huge quake, massive
tsunami and nuclear plant crisis is still causing extensive damage throughout Japan, especiallyeastern areas, even three months after the disaster. Supply-chain disruption and electrical power
shortage require us to make a sweeping review of the way of business. In making efforts together topromote the recovery and reconstruction of our country, we are determined to take vital and prompt
actions to rebuild the country in visible ways.
During the past year, the following have been mainly done;1)JRAIA built a study framework for refrigerant containment andnext-generation

refrigerantsforfurthertackling

theglobal

environmental issues; 2)Japan Air-conditioning and Refrigeration
Testing Laboratory (JATL) was established; 3)JRAIA Secretariat
was reorganized to strengthen our international activities. This year,
JRAIA continues to address the following; 1)improve energy
efficiency of our products; 2)provide accurate product information forusers; 3)develop JRAIA standards; 4)ensure product safety.
Now, our business environment is far from being optimistic due tounclear global economic trends, financial crisis in some countries,
the price-hike of raw materials, and so on. Nevertheless ourNew Chairman Fujiwara

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refrigeration and air-conditioning industry is expected to achieve consistent growth owing tofavorable demand both at home and abroad. Meanwhile, our major contribution to globalenvironmental issues is highly required and it's our responsibility to find solutions to them incollaboration with associations abroad. As Chairman, I'd like to be fully committed to accomplishing
our missions in close cooperation with our members.

During the meeting, the awards were presented to eight
members who contributed to their committee activities.

Awards Presentation

Risk Assessment of Lower Flammable Refrigerants started
In Japan, HCFC had long and widely been used as refrigerant for refrigeration and air conditioning
equipment until the Montreal Protocol was enacted in 1987. Since then, production of HCFC has
been regulated, and conversion to HFC has been accelerated.
JRAIA is committed to solving the issues of HFC emissions and to studying refrigerants with a low
GWP replacing R410. However, next-generation refrigerants like HFO1234yf/ze and R32 have someweak points such as flammability. Even now we have not found new refrigerants that meet all therequirements.
In some emerging countries, conversion from HCFC to HFC is being studied with the use of theUNIDO Multilateral Fund, and it is reported that they plan to mainly use R32 as an alternative. R32has excellent properties but is slightly flammable. It must be used with caution.
To reduce the effects of global warming due to refrigerant emissions, we are forced to use
refrigerants with lower flammability as one of options. Thus we started risk assessment of thoserefrigerants jointly with research institutes and universities in our country. The main items of risk
assessment are flammability and safety when leaked.

RAC and PAC Domestic Shipments
A lot of people engaged in the air conditioning industry were concerned about RAC sales after theGreat East Japan Earthquake in March, predicting lower production volume due to lack of key
components and electric power shortage and decline in consumer confidence.
In fact, however, the shipments continuously increased in April, May and June on a year-on-yearbasis, as shown in the table below. In particular, the RAC shipments in June recorded the highest
volume since we started our statistics of domestic shipments. Increasing awareness of electricity
saving to cope with the expected power shortage in this summer most likely boosted replacing older
air conditioners with new higher-efficiency models. In addition, extreme heat in June pushed up
RAC sales. Supply of products during the period from April to June does not appear to have been2

affected significantly by the disaster thanks to the inventories. In March, last-minute buying in the
expiry of economic measure driven by METI, namely Eco-point system, considerably decreased theinventories in the hands of retailers.
Accordingly shipments in April from manufacturers increased 80% from the same month of theprevious year. The inventories in the distribution channel and manufacturers’ warehouses seem
likely to have contributed to covering increased demand. On the other hand, with rapid recovery ofparts supply chain, the manufacturers of air conditioners are expected to restore their production
very soon in spite of the ongoing power shortage.
PAC shipments are nearing pre-financial-crisis levels.
April 2011
units

※May 2011

Y on Yunitsbasis %

Y on Ybasis %

June 2011units

Y on Ybasis %

RAC

560,537179.6

806,748140.6

1,470,346

113.1

PAC

51,536122.2

65,333129.2

83,577124.8

RAC: Residential Air-conditioners

PAC: Commercial Air-conditionersHVAC&R JAPAN 20122012. Feb.14 (tue.) to Feb.17 (fri.)
10:00 to17:00 (*16:00 on the last day)Tokyo Big Sight East Exhibition Hall 1,2
You can access here for more details
http://www.hvacr.jp/eng/index.html

Office: Kikai Shinko Bldg. 201. 3-5-8, Shibakoen, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0011, Japan
URL: http://www.jraia.or.jp

Contact: tajima@jraia.or.jp:kao224@jraia.or.jp

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