JFE Holdings Posts 2.1% Lower Full Year Recurring Profit

JFE Holdings announced on Thursday the firm posted 502.9 billion yen of consolidated recurring profit for the year ending March 2008. The profit was 2.1% lower than previous year due to higher cost for raw materials and higher depreciation despite of higher sales volume and price. The firm didn’t disclose the earning outlook for the year ending March 2009 due to ongoing price negotiation. The consolidated sales increased by 8.6% to 3.54 trillion yen for the year ending March 2008 from previous year. The steel unit’s recurring profit increased by 5 billion yen to 508.9 billion yen when the unit gained 134 billion yen from higher volume and price and 23 billion yen from cost down despite of negative impact of 100 billion yen for higher raw materials energy cost and 33 billion yen for higher depreciation. The operating subsidiary, JFE Steel posted 401.4 billion yen of recurring profit with 2.276 trillion yen of sales for the year ending March 2008. The raw steel output increased by 5.1% to 30.52 million tonnes and the steel shipment increased by 6.0% to 28.02 million tonnes. The export rate in sales value decreased by 0.1 point to 43.9%. The averaged steel selling price increased by 3,200 yen to 79,200 yen per tonne. JFE Steel plans 30.8 million tonnes of raw steel output for the year ending March 2009. The firm tries to realize 30 billion yen of cost down while the firm seeks higher selling price and sales volume to cover higher raw materials cost.