JISF Chairman Appreciates JFTC’s Quick Merger Investigation

Japan Iron & Steel Federation’ chairman and president of JFE Steel Eiji Hayashida attended a monthly press conference held in Tokyo on Tuesday and gave a comment on the merger approval by Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) for integration of Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Industries. He appreciated JFTC’s speedy conclusion and appropriate comprehension of Japanese steel industry’s current situation under tough global competition. He emphasized smooth merger investigation of this time could encourage not only Japanese steel industry but other Japanese enterprises to enhance international competitiveness.

As for Japanese crude steel production, Mr. Hayashida told the output was approximately 8.7 million tonnes in November and is likely to keep the almost same volume in December. He added the production is estimated to decrease by about 900,000 tonnes due to direct and indirect impacts of flood in Thailand for October-December and the impact may partially remain for January-March. Thus the quarterly production is forecasted to become lower than 26 million tonnes for January-March and the annual production would total below 106 million tonnes for fiscal 2011 ending in March 2012.

For fiscal 2012, domestic steel consumption is expected at 48 million tonnes for carbon steel and 12 million tonnes for special steel, he said. However, Japanese steel export must slow down and the steel import may increase under extremely strong yen trend. He expects Japanese annual crude steel production is estimated to represent year-to-year decrease for fiscal 2012 while the production is more than 100 million tonnes.

Mr. Hayashida also gave the latest view on JFE Steel’s non-consolidated crude steel production. JFE Steel previously forecasted the output at around 14.3 million tonnes for second half of fiscal 2011. Mr. Hayashida said the quarterly output is likely to total 6.7 million tonnes for October-December and to keep the volume or to decrease slightly for January-March. JFE Steel’s crude steel output was 13.65 million tonnes for first half of fiscal 2011 against the annual plan of 28 million tonnes.