According to the data released by the Japan Iron and Steel Association, steel product orders, including specialty steels, booked by domestic steel consuming sectors in Japan in September this year amounted to 6.87 million metric tons, decreasing by 3.8 percent compared to August and down eight percent year on year.
In the third quarter of the year, ordinary steel product orders booked by domestic steel consuming sectors in Japan amounted to 17.2 million mt, decreasing by 2.6 percent from the previous quarter and up 0.6 percent year on year, while special steel product orders fell by 8.2 percent compared to the second quarter of this year and were down by 13.9 percent from the third quarter of 2011, amounting to 4.3 million mt.
In the third quarter of this year, ordinary steel product orders in Japan booked by the domestic construction sector increased by 3.3 percent quarter on quarter to 2.75 million metric tons - up 13.5 percent year on year, while steel product orders booked by the Japanese automotive sector, including specialty steel, amounted to 3.2 million metric tons, falling by 4.1 percent as compared to the previous quarter and down 13.5 percent year on year. Japan's shipbuilding industry booked 1 million metric tons of ordinary steel products in the third quarter, declining by 7.3 percent quarter on quarter and down 20 percent as compared to the same quarter of 2011.