Japan Steel Import Increases by 80% for January-June

Japanese carbon steels import increased by 79.8% to 1.797 million tonnes for January-June from the corresponding period of 2009, announced Japan Iron & Steel Federation on Thursday. In January-June 2009, the import represented below 1 million tonnes due to inventory adjustment at sgteel dealers and users along global business downturn.

Plate import increased by 2.3 times to 114,732 tonnes, hot-rolled sheet import almost doubled to 770,306 tonnes, and cold-rolled sheet import increased by 62.8% to 384,673 tonnes.

In June, the import increased by 14.2% to 367,905 tonnes from May, which increased for 4 consecutive months. Domestic steel dealers and users increased purchase of cheaper products from overseas due to higher yen rate or Japanese steel makers’ price hike.

The import increased by 33.5% to 15,066 tonnes for H-beam in June from May, by 38.1% to 2,366 tonnes for steel bar, by 21.9% to 38,200 tonnes for wire rod, by 21.8% to 22,863 tonnes for plate, by 5.1% to 151,365 tonnes for hot-rolled sheet and by 39.6% to 80,831 tonnes for cold-rolled sheet. Meanwhile the import decreased by 2.3% to 33,494 tonnes for zinc coated sheet.