Japan Special Steel Demand Forecasted to Increase by 11.8% for July-September

Japanese special steel demand is forecasted to increase by 11.8% to 4.74 million tonnes for hot rolled products for July-September from the previous quarter, according to Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The demand would upturn after 3 quarters along the recovery of car and construction machine productions. The demand in domestic market is forecasted to increase by 13.1% while to increase by 9.4% for export despite of strong yen exchange rate.

Domestic demand for SC Steel would increase by 15.8% while increase by 9.8% for structural alloy steel. The domestic demand is forecasted to increase by 3.3% for ball-bearing steel while jump by 32.8% for high tensile steel sheet. As for stainless steels, the domestic would increase by 2.3% for long products and increase by 0.7% for flat products.

The exporting demand is forecasted to decrease by 8% for stainless steel sheet mainly due to nickel price down while to increase by 21% for high tensile steel sheet and by 8.9% for structural alloy steel along recovery of automobile production and increasing projects of energy industry at overseas market.