Japan Steel’s Order Intake Rises by 1.6% in July

Japanese steel makers’ carbon steel order receipt increased by 1.6% to 5.768 million tonnes in July from June, which represented below 6 million tonnes for 3 straight months, announced by Japan Iron and Steel Federation on Friday. Compared with a year earlier, the order receipt decreased by 0.2%. The order receipt kept upward from the bottom in the first half of 2009 while levels off at 80% of the recent peak level since May 2010.

The order receipt decreased by 0.7% to 3.6 million tonnes for domestic market in July from June. The order receipt decreased by 2.2% to 765,000 tonnes for building materials and by 3.3% to 1.916 million tonnes for manufacturing industry. Meanwhile, the order receipt increased by 7.7% to 855,000 tonnes for automobiles and by 8.7% to 148,000 tonnes for industrial machines.

The order receipt increased by 5.7% to 2.168 million tonnes for export in July from June. However, the recovery pace slowed down compared with a few months ago due to inventory adjustment in Asian market.

By items, the order receipt continued to decrease for structural materials such as H-beam and rebar while maintained steady for steel sheet.

Carbon steel order receipt hit the recent peak at 7.1 million tonnes in July 2008 and hit the bottom at 3.9 million tonnes for January-March 2009. The orders kept above 6 million tonnes for February-April 2010 thanks to the strong recovery in overseas market while leveled off at around 5.7 million tonnes since May.