Flat Carbon Steel Wire Price in Tokyo

Carbon steel wire market price is flat at 91,000 yen per tonne for product with 4 millimeters diameter and at 83,000 yen for commodity grade product around Tokyo. Major Japanese wire rod maker, Godo Steel announced on Friday the firm raises the wire rod and bar-in coil selling prices by over 5,000 yen per tonne from February shipment. Other rod makers are expected to raise their selling prices. Carbon steel wire makers will also pass the hike of wire rod on their selling proces. The market price is expected to rise. Godo Steel raised wire rod selling price when ferrous scrap price increased and wire rod price was relatively cheaper than other steel products. Wire rod makers seek the price hike for ghe first time since spring 2005. Some carbon steel wire makers already raised the selling price. Major carbon steel wire maker, Tokyo Wire will raise common steel wire, annealed steel wire and galvanized steel wire price by 7,000 yen per tonne including increasing costs for sub materials. Carbon steel wire makers could not pass the increased wire rod price on their selling price so far under strong pressure for price cut from users. Carbon steel wire rod users have offered price down due to the increase of cheaper wire rod imports mainly from China. Steel wire makers are suffered from worse profitability. Japanese wire rod import is in decreasing trend since October 2006, which downed by 7.6% to 165,867 tonnes for April-November 2006 from a year ago, according to Ministry of Finance. Domestic wire rod supply is tightening in Japan.