Stainless Steel Sheet Import Jumps by 79.6% in December

Japanese stainless steel sheet import increased by 79.6% to 24,317 tonnes in December 2006 from November including hot-rolled and cold-rolled stainless steel sheet, according to Ministry of Finance. The import from South Korea increased to about 3 times or 22,473 tones in December from a year ago, which renewed highest since September 2005 at 23,190 tonnes, and accounted for about 92% of all import. The import almost doubled to 16,552 tonnes for hot-rolled products and increased by 34.6% to 7,765 tonnes for cold-rolled products. Hot-rolled products import was 15,530 tonnes from South Korea, 20 tonnes from China, 72 tonnes from Taiwan, 445 tonnes from Sweden and 438 tonnes from Finland. Cold-rolled products import was 6,944 tonnes from South Korea, 135 tonnes from China, 222 tonnes from Taiwan and 299 tonnes from Sweden. The import from South Korea seemed mostly supplied by POSCO, South Korean integrated steel maker. In the past, POSCO supplied hot-rolled stainless steel coil to POSCO E&C (Zhangjiagang) Engineering & Consuling in China. However, POSCO E&C (Zhangjiagang) Engineering & Consuling’s hot rolling mill which has the capacity at 600,000 tonnes per year started operation in mid 2006. POSCO’s hot-rolled stainless steel coil became surplus in South Korea and seemed to flow into Japan. POSCO’s hot-rolled products might impact Japanese domestic market price which continues rising since the beginning of 2006.