Japan Steels Expand Capital Expenditure by 1.2% for F2008

Japanese steel makers plan to increase the capital expenditure by 1.2% to 779.9 billion yen for fiscal 2008 started April from fiscal 2007, which represents increases for 4 years in a row, announced by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Monday. The industry keeps high level expenditure to meet firm demand while the growth rate is slower than 9.6% in fiscal 2007 and 44% in fiscal 2006. METI researched domestic 57 steel companies. The expenditure is 663.847 billion yen for carbon steel and 89.542 billion yen for special steel for fiscal 2008, which is 0.6% lower and 26.7% higher than the level in fiscal 2007. The offshore expenditure increases by 42.5% to 2.1 billion yen for fiscal 2008 from fiscal 2007. The expenditure increases by 99.8% to 2.058 million yen for carbon steel.