COVID-19 hits Japan’s coatings industry

Julian Ryall reports from Tokyo on how Japan’s paint and coatings sector is facing tough times as COVID-19 hits after the Olympic boost ends

As with every business sector in  every country around the world, Japan’s paint and coatings industry has been thrown into uncertainty over the full impact and longer-term implications of the coronavirus COVID-19 that has swept the globe since first emerging in China in December 2019. The Japanese government has tried hard to keep the wheels of business and industry turning and, until April 7, had resisted calls from a growing number of health experts to impose a lockdown on this nation of 127M people. That policy ran contrary to approaches adopted in many other developed countries, including the UK, France and Italy and with the number of infections increasing, new regulations went into effect the following day.

Read the full report here: Japan 2020