Japan Building Starts Drops by 56% for Non Wooden Structure in September

Japanese building start for non wooden building decreased by 56.4% to 4.74 million square meters in September from a year earlier, announced by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on Wednesday. The figure decreased widely after 22% drop in July and 47% down in August. The lower building activity reduces steel demand and steel makers could expand the output reduction for construction materials. The building start decreased by 51.4% for steel structure, by 66.2% for reinforced concrete and by 40.1% for steel structure reinforced concrete in September from a year earlier. The building start decreased for 3 months in a low after activate of new building standard law in June. The slower building activity reduces steel demand. Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport launched 937 of consulting offices in early October to hear complains on building standard law and related issues. The ministry also supports finance of small- and mid-sized firms in construction industry, which is heavily suffered from the very slow building activity. The ministry revised the part of operations of building standard law on Tuesday to improve the building start permitting process. The ministry’s action could improve the building activity. However, the steel industry could keep the output reduction for a while though concrete reinforcing steel bar makers reduce the output by 10-20% compared with same period of 2006. With major drop of building start in September, steel makers could expand the output reduction more.