Japan Steel Import Declines by 13.9% in September

Japanese carbon steel import decreased by 13.9% to 231,024 tonnes in September from a year earlier, while increasing by 6.1% from August, announced by Japan Iron & Steel Federation on October 30th. The import exceeded 200,000 tonnes for 3 consecutive months. Nippon Steel’s sales representative said Japanese steel industry should pay attention to import products when Chinese steel makers are increasing output more than domestic demand. The import for January-September totaled 1.67 million tonnes, down by 40.7% from the same period of 2008.

By year-to-year comparison, the import increased by 2.2 times to 6,721 tonnes for H-beam, by 34.8% to 8,123 tonnes for steel tube, while decreased by 4.6% to 100,514 tonnes for hot rolled sheet, by 38.4% to 52,386 tonnes for cold rolled sheet and by 16% to 25,495 tonnes for zinc coated steel sheet.

Compared with August 2009, the import increased by 37.1% for H-beam, increasing for 3 consecutive months. The import increased by 14.9% for hot rolled sheet, 4.2% for cold rolled sheet and 8% for zinc coated steel sheet.

The import of special steels decreased by 14% to 17,671 tonnes in September from a year earlier, while increasing by 5.5% from August. The import represented month-to-month increase for 3 consecutive months.

The import of secondary processed products decreased by 4.6% to 50,633 tonnes in September from a year earlier, while increasing by 21.7% from August.

By countries, Japanese common steel import decreased by 15% year-to-year to 153,743 tonnes from South Korea, by 41% to 21,037 tonnes from China and by 14.7% to 53,414 tonnes from Taiwan.