Reuters reported that Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co cut its prices for all steel products for the first time in seven months as it looks to head off imports and deal with softening demand.
Mr Naoto Ohori MD at Tokyo Steel said that "The market is facing a turning point. Imports of some products are rising fast due to a strong yen, reconstruction work after the March earthquake and tsunami won''t start in earnest until next year and car output will stay at a low level for a while. There is no good news."
The firm said it would cut prices for June shipment by JPY 5,000 per tonne to counter rising imports and to cope with declining demand in the domestic market, marking the first across the board drop in prices since November 2010.
Tokyo Steel said that it lowered its price for H beams, used in construction, to JPY 76,000 per tonne, saying reconstruction work following the quake and tsunami in northeastern Japan has been delayed.
Japan''s imports of steel products, mainly from South Korea and China, are small. They totaled only 7.2 million tonnes in 2010, compared to exports during the year of 43 million tonnes by Japanese steelmakers, the world''s biggest steel exporters.
Rival firm Nippon Steel Corporation, the world''s No 4 steelmaker, has since early this year been pushing hard to raise prices of construction steel in what it calls an effort to rectify unduly low prices given surges in input costs. The company may reveal its pricing strategy to its distributors this week.
( Source: www.steelguru.com )