Japan Ni Stainless Cold Rolled Sheet Dealers Face Difficulty for Price Hike

Stainless steel dealers try to increase nickel series cold rolled stainless steel sheet reselling price from 330,000 yen per tonne around Tokyo. Nippon Steel & Sumikin Stainless Steel Corporation announced in January the firm increases the selling price by 10,000 yen and Nisshin Steel plans to increase the price by 20,000 yen. The dealers would increase the reselling price from new purchase order. However, the dealers would experience hard time for passing higher material cost on the reselling price due to the increase in import.

New housing starts showed year-on-year increase for 6 straight months through 72,838 in November, which would reach 847,000 in fiscal 2010 ending March 2011 and exceed 775,277 in fiscal 2009.

However, one major stainless steel dealer is concerned about the revaluation loss from nickel price decline and keeps the purchase at low level. The price negotiation would face hard time, according to the dealer.