Flat Rebar Price in Tokyo

Concrete reinforcing steel bar market price is flat at around 70,000 yen per tonne for base size with 19 millimeters diameter around Tokyo. The transaction is calm due to very slow building activity due to transition process for new building standard law. The dealers have trouble to pass higher cost price on the reselling price. However, the dealers try to keep the profitability by avoiding low priced order receipt when they expect the makers could keep the high selling price under higher ferrous scrap cost and potential higher demand. The dealers try to wait the demand could recover by keeping the reselling price. Ferrous scrap market price is weak but the price could recover toward year end season. The scrap price is expected to increase again. The rebar makers could increase the selling price more from current 65,000 yen per tonne. The makers, which keep around 4 months of order backlog, try to find the timing for additional hike to cover higher cost for raw materials and subsidiary materials.