Japan Steel Pipe Pile Orders Increase by 13.3% in F2005

Order reception volume of steel pipe pile in Japan increased by 13.3% to 561,000 tonnes in fiscal 2005 ended March 2006 from the previous year thanks to some large construction projects including Tokyo Gulf seaside road, according to Association for Steel Pipe Piles, which advances diffusion and technology improvement for steel pipe pile. The association forecasts the demand would become to 550,000 tonnes in fiscal 2006.Private-sector demand increased by 35.8% to 224,000 tonnes in fiscal 2005 from fiscal 2004, while demand for public projects increased by 3.7% to 277,000 tonnes. The makers tried to increase the sales for private sectors in fiscal 2005 with earthquake resistant or disaster prevention products under the decrease of public construction projects.Public demand for civil engineering was 266,000 tonnes in fiscal 2005 and that for building construction was 11,000 tonnes. Private sector demand for civil engineering was 47,000 tonnes and that for building construction was 177,000 tronnes.Steel pipe piles are adopted to fundamentals for large structures such as bridge or port structures. The demand is recently decreasing every year due to the shrink of public sector investment.In fiscal 2004 Japanese order reception volume of steel pipe pile was 495,000 tonnes, the lowest since fiscal 1970 when the statistics was started.