Flat Plate Price in Tokyo

Market price of steel plate is flat at 79,000-80,000 yen per tonne for products with 19 millimeters thick, 5 feet width and 10 feet length around Tokyo. The price is 95,000-100,000 yen with cutting process. The price is finding the bottom after the decrease when Japanese plate makers expect the bridge demand recovers in the second half of the year after the slump along with the firm demand for shipbuilding and construction machinery. The price is likely to keep the level.Japanese plate makers keep the optimistic view on the market with little negative factors when Asian countries keep building infrastructure and Asian shipbuilders keep order backlog for more than 3 years. However, some shearing processors for building materials are operating at much less than the capacity and their profitability keeps marginal. Japanese shearing processors’ association reported the plate inventory decreased to less than 470,000 tonnes at the end of April. The inventory adjustment is progressing.