Japanese Nonferrous Metal Import Increases, Export Decreases in May

Japanese nonferrous metal import represented year-to-year plus for all major items except for cathode copper in May, according to the trade statistics by Ministry of Finance. The import of aluminium alloy ingot hit the largest volume since November 2008 thanks to the firm demand related to automotive applications. Primary aluminium ingot increased by 91% from a year earlier.

Cathode copper import decreased by 25% to 2,468 tonnes in May from a year ago. On the other hand, copper scrap import represented the secondly highest volume next to 8,239 tonnes in November 2009 due to low scrap generation in Japan.

Electrolytic lead import increased by 23% but hit the lowest volume since July 2009. Electrolytic zinc with purity above 99.99% increased by 36% year-to-year while decreased from 2,506 tonnes in the previous month.

As to Japanese nonferrous metal export, cathode copper decreased by 19% to 46,296 tonnes in May from a year earlier. The export for China dropped by 43.2% to 19,926 tonnes, which represented below 20,000 tonnes for the first time since December 2009.

Copper scrap export decreased by 37.1% to 20,456 tonnes and represented year-to-year minus for 4 straight months. The export for China declined by 35% to 18,316 tonnes. Aluminium scrap export decreased by 46.3% to 6,838 tonnes, which declined by 33.4% to 5,426 tonnes for China and lowered by 71.8% to 601 tonnes for South Korea.