Japan 5 Major Steels Increase Steel Output by 0.6% in 2005

Japanese 5 integrated steel makers increased the raw steel output by 0.6% to 82.89 million tonnes in 2005 from 2004 keeping the high level output. The output increased by 0.6 percentage points to 73.7% of Japanese total output. Nippon Steel increased the output by 4.9% to 31.48 million tonnes in 2005 from 2004 when it produced more than 30 million tonnes. The output increased by 1.4 points to 28% of Japanese total output. JFE Steel decreased the output by 4.9% to 26.54 million tonnes reducing the share by 1.2 points to 23.6%. Sumitomo Metal Industries increased raw steel output by 3.6% to 13.29 million tonnes in 2005 from 2004 increasing the share by 0.4 points to 11.8% of Japanese output. Kobe Steel decreased the output by 0.8% to 7.68 million tonnes keeping the share at 6.8%. Nisshin Steel reduced the output by 3.1% to 3.91 million tonnes decreasing the share by 0.1 points to 3.5%.