Japan Higher Import and Export of Copper in February

Japanese import of electrolytic copper (cathode copper) increased by 37% to 5,495 tonnes in February from a year earlier, which exceeded 5,000 tonnes for the first time as February since 6,623 tonnes in February 2004, announced by Ministry of Finance on 28 March.Import of primary aluminium ingot decreased by 19% year-on-year in February when demand maintained slow from domestic construction market, though domestic market price of primary aluminium decreased by 20% for January-March compared with the previous quarter. On the other hand, import of aluminium alloy ingot increased by 6.1% year-on-year thanks to stable demand from automobile industry.Import of electrolytic zinc decreased by 50% year-on-year for above 99.99% purity and by 32% for less than 99.99% purity in February, when domestic production of zinc coated steel sheet decreased. Nickel import decreased by 18% year-on-year with slow demand for stainless steels.As to nonferrous metal exports, aluminium scrap increased by 46.3% to 7,466 tonnes in February from a year earlier. Aluminium scrap export for China increased by 41.1% to 5,482 tonnes, most of which seemed mixed scrap, with active demand for secondary aluminium alloy in the country.Japanese export of copper scrap increased by 50.2% to 33,593 tonnes in February from a year earlier, which for China increased by 59.6% to 30,696 tonnes. Export of electrolytic copper (cathode copper) increased by 19.1% to 40,901 tonnes, which for Indonesia increased by 5.4 times to 5,393 tonnes.