Japan Special Steel Output Increases More than METI’s Estimation

Japanese special steel output maintains firm and is expected to exceed estimation by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) for January-March. The estimation was 5.419 million tonnes. The output increased by 0.9% to 1.822 million tonnes in January compared with the estimation per month and hit record high after Lehman’s fall. Japanese automobile output decreased while increased for export as knockdown parts. Japanese construction machine and industrial machine outputs maintain increasing. Special steel production would be pushed up mainly by export in fiscal 2011 starting in April.

METI’s estimation for January-March was 0.8% higher than October-December while actual production in January represented 1.7% higher than monthly average for October-December. Domestic demand is shrinking due to users’ production shift to overseas. Domestic special steel sales by large and small dealers decreased by 20% in 2010 compared with 2008 and by 11% compared with 2006.

On the other hand, special steel export increased by 33% to 8.2 million tonnes in 2010 from 2008, which hit record high. METI estimated special steel production increases by 0.4% to domestic market for January-March compared with the previous quarter while increases by 11% for export. By year-to-year comparison, the production would increase by 7% to domestic market while increase by 23% for export.

Japanese automobile output increased by 38% to 9.68 million units at overseas for January-September 2010 from the same period of 2009. The production was 32% higher than domestic car production in the same period. Japanese car export increased in January from a year earlier, which represented year-to-year plus for 13 straight months. Toyota Motor plans domestic automobile output decreases by 4% to 3.89 million units in 2011 from 2010 while increases by 6% to 4.81 million units at overseas.