Demand for Japanese-made machine tools recovered substantially in the first nine months of 2011.

Orders totaled 997.1 billion yen for the January-September period, shooting up 41.9% from a year earlier, the Japan Machine Tool Builders' Association said Tuesday.

The March 11 disaster derailed domestic manufacturing, and China's monetary tightening is increasingly slowing down production activities there. But orders from European and U.S. customers increased for 21 straight months through September, and the association is keeping its 2011 order outlook at around 1.3 trillion yen.

U.S. and European automakers and machinery manufacturers are making no changes to their long-term capital investment plans, report members of the trade group.

"Demand for Japanese machine tools remains strong," said association chairman Motohiko Yokoyama, who reckons that monthly orders will stay at around 100 billion yen in October and beyond.