Japan’s domestic steel product orders up 3.01% in Q1 2014
- Listed: 05/10/2014 2:15 pm
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Japan’s domestic steel product orders up 3% in Q1
Date: May 9, 2014
Source: SteelOrbis
In March of the current year, steel product orders, including specialty steels, booked by domestic sectors in Japan amounted to 4.81 million metric tons, up 0.42 percent compared to March 2013 and up 2.02 percent compared to February, according to the data released by the Japan Iron and Steel Federation (JISF). Meanwhile, in the first quarter of this year, domestic steel product orders in Japan increased by 3.01 percent year on year to 14.41 million metric tons.
In March of the current year, steel product orders in Japan booked by the domestic construction sector decreased by 4.96 percent to 1.05 million mt, while steel product orders booked by the Japanese automotive sector came to 1.03 million metric tons, increasing by 0.59 percent, both including special steel and on year-on-year basis. Japan’s shipbuilding industry booked 332,648 metric tons of steel products in March this year, up 8.45 percent compared to March 2013.
Major steel makers report high profits
Date: May 9, 2014
Source: NHK World
Major steelmakers in Japan have reported a big leap in profits for fiscal 2013, which ended in March. The nation’s biggest steel manufacturer, Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal, posted a group operating profit of 2.9 billion dollars. That’s a jump of more than 8-fold compared with the combined profits of Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal before they merged in October, 2012.
Another steelmaker, JFE Holdings, showed a profit of 1.5 billion dollar, 3.8 times the amount in the previous year. Kobe Steel earned 1.1billion dollars, a 10-fold rise. Company executives say shipments to construction firms and automakers rose in anticipation of the consumption tax hike last month.