Japan Special Steel Order Drops by 18.5% in April

Japanese special steel order receipt decreased by 18.5% to 1.323 million tonnes in April from March, which decreased to less than 1.4 million tonnes for the first time since August 2010, according to Japan Iron and Steel Federation. The order decreased for the first time in 2 months. The domestic order decreased by 23.8% to 778,196 tonnes. The order decreased by 36.7% to 182,105 tonnes for automobile. The order for export decreased by 9.5% to 544,707 tonnes.

Japanese special steel order for automobile was 42.3% lower in April than 317,838 tonnes of monthly average in fiscal 2010 ended March.

The order increased by 9.9% to 54,262 tonnes for construction in April from March while the demand decreased for automobile. The order increased by 4.3% to 15,679 tonnes for home and office appliance. However, the order decreased by 6.7% to 130,316 tonnes for industrial machinery and by 24.5% to 107,143 tonnes for dealers.