Insight

Cooperation with key suppliers is essential for delivering high-quality Japanese fasteners to the rest of the world. That’s why, with its Sunco-kai association, Sunco Industries is continuing to facilitate Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) regulation seminars and knowledge exchanges for Japanese fastener companies. 

Sunco-kai is a cooperative association organised by Sunco Industries and its major domestic suppliers to promote the improvement of skills and technologies, in order to provide products of higher quality, as well as promote friendship among members – mainly screws and fastener related product manufacturers in Japan, with over 176 member companies. 

The first CBAM seminar was held on 25^th September 2024, marking the first time a Japanese trading company independently organised a large-scale seminar on CBAM. Around 190 attendees were at the seminar where Keishi Okamura from Zeroboard Inc gave a presentation on CBAM, which will be fully implemented from January 2026.

The seminar provided detailed explanations of the CBAM mechanism and the measures needed in the future. It was explained that CBAM will also impact Japanese companies – who may lose competitiveness if measures are not taken. After the seminar, one supplier said: “The seminar was very informative, as I was not very aware of CBAM. We will have to educate our employees about it.” There were also several positive comments on CBAM initiatives with companies hoping to receiving more guidance and information from Sunco, seeing the adoption measures inevitable for the future development of the fastener industry in Japan. 

Japanese quality fasteners

Sunco Industries has dominated the Japanese fastener industry for over 75 years, with its strength underlined by its product range of over 2.1 million items and its immediate stock of 300,000 products. The company can supply this wide range of products thanks to its partnerships with over 1,300 high-quality fastener factories in Japan – helping to guarantee that key products are always in stock. 

Sunco comments: “We have a policy to continuously increase our stock based on customers’ enquiries, working with partners to ensure requested products are available the next time an enquiry is received – with the aim of making customers’ specials our standard. To guarantee the quality of all of our products we have 80 product purchasing staff members who visit suppliers daily to confirm quality improvements, along with a highly experienced quality assurance department. A lot of technology goes into even the smallest of screws and we believe that Japanese screws are the best in the world when it comes to the safety and reliability of the end product. This has been proven over the years and we are confident that it will continue to be the case in the future.”

In-line with providing the highest quality service to its customers, Sunco also uses the latest modelling systems to manage its leading logistics centre, which has enabled customers to reduce their investment in stock and rely on Sunco’s in-depth stock – with its 3Q Net web catalogue system enabling customers to see inventory in ‘real time’.  

The company concludes: “For those customers looking to enter the Japanese market or for those companies concerned about their supply chains – especially with recent challenges such as CBAM, Russian materials and high tariffs – Sunco will do its best to support all customers and help ensure the stability of supply chains.”