Japan Carbon Steel Export Decreases by 8.7% in September

Japanese carbon steel export decreased by 8.7% to 2.243 million tonnes in September from a year earlier, according to Japan Iron & Steel Federation. The export turned to year-to-year minus again though which represented first year-to-year plus in August after 6 months. The export seemed to decrease due to weak Asian steel market, financial uncertainty in developed countries, economy slowdown in emerging countries and continuously high yen rate. Japanese integrated steel makers show an intention to decrease export when Asian steel market price is likely to deteriorate more along downtrend of raw material prices and extremely strong yen trend has negative impact on export profitability. Flood in Thailand is also affecting steel demand negatively.

Total steel export including special steel products decreased by 11.7% to 3.302 million tonnes in September from a year earlier, continuous year-to-year minus for 7 months. Total export value was US$ 4.2612 billion, continuous year-to-year plus for 21 months. Meanwhile, in yen, the export value decreased by 3.6% to 327.9 billion yen and turned to year-to-year minus after 3 months.

Among carbon steel items, hot rolled wide strip decreased by 7.5% to 700,000 tonnes, zinc coated steel sheet decreased by 21.4% to 378,000 tonnes, cold rolled wide strip decreased by 12.8% to 299,000 tonnes, steel plate decreased by 13.9% to 28,0000 tonnes, and magnetic steel sheet decreased by 2.8% to 81,000 tonnes. On the other hand, welded steel tube increased by 40.9% to 127,000 tonnes, shaped steel increased by 1.2% to 77,000 tonnes and wire rod increased by 98.8% to 59,000 tonnes.

By countries, total steel export decreased by 32.4% to 621,000 tones to South Korea, year-to-year minus for 10 straight months when POSCO and Hyundai Steel expanded production capacities. The export to China decreased by 1.9% to 585,000 tonnes, year-to-year minus for 6 straight months.

Accumulative carbon steel export decreased by 6.4% to 13.618 million tonnes for April-September from the same period of fiscal 2010.