Japan Special Steel Demand Rises by 2.2%

Japanese demand of special steel hot rolled products will increase by 2.2% to 1.809 million tonnes including export in monthly average in April-June from same period of 2007, according to Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The domestic demand for automobile and industrial machinery decreases from peak season of January-March while the export decreases from January-March due to lower export of high tensile steel. METI expects the demand will increase by 4.2% to record 22.492 million tonnes in fiscal 2008 starting April from fiscal 2007. The demand increases by 2.2% to 16.022 million tonnes for domestic market and by 9.6% to 6.47 million tonnes for export. The monthly averaged demand increases by 0.6% to 1.293 million tonnes for domestic market in April-June from same period of 2007, which represents increases for 24 quarters in a row. The export demand increases by 6.7% to 516,000 tonnes. METI expects Japanese automobile output increases by 4% to 4.98 million units in April-June from same period of 2007. The output increases by 2.6% to 2.8 million units for finished car and by 5.9% to 2.18 million units for knockdown sets.