Japan Carbon Steel Import Rises by 2.5% in May

Japanese carbon steel import increased by 2.5% to 354,871 tonnes in May from a year earlier, which increased by 11.8% from last month and represented the month-to-month up for 3 consecutive months, announced by Japan Iron and Steel Federation on Friday. The import increased for hot-rolled steel sheet, plate or wire rod while decreased by 48.3% to 15,721 tonnes for special steel products. The import decreased by 8% to 1.54 million tonnes for January-May from the corresponding period of last year. The import decreased by 71.7% to 3,679 tonnes for H-beam in May from a year earlier while increased by 3.8 times to 2,806 tonnes for steel bar. Wire rod import increased by 43.6% to 36,973 tonnes. Plate import increased by 2.4 times to 32,559 tonnes. The import increased by 2% to 151,562 tonnes for hot-rolled steel sheet while decreased by 11.5% to 84,271 tonnes for cold-rolled steel sheet and by 23.1% to 27,648 tonnes for galvanizing steel sheet. Plate and hot-rolled steel sheet imports increased when some Japanese dealers purchased the products due to the tightness of domestic supply and demand balance. However, the import decreased by 0.4% for plate for January-May from the same period of 2007, down by 6.1% for hot-rolled steel sheet. The import decreased by 4% to 187,810 tonnes from South Korea in May from a year earlier and by 12.4% to 64,582 tonnes from Taiwan while increased by 41.5% to 95,690 tonnes from China. Because POSCO, South Korean steel maker, and CSC, Taiwanese steel maker, reduced the export to Japan, the import from South Korea and Taiwan decreased.