In May this year, steel product orders, including specialty steels, booked by domestic sectors in Japan amounted to 4.38 million metric tons, down 3.1 percent compared to April and by eight percent year on year, according to the data released by the Japan Iron and Steel Association (JISF). Meanwhile, in the January-May period of the current year, domestic steel product orders in Japan decreased by 6.8 percent year on year to 22.43 million metric tons.
In May this year, ordinary steel product orders in Japan booked by the domestic construction sector decreased by 8.5 percent to 903,337 metric tons, while steel product including special steel orders booked by the Japanese automotive sector amounted to 1.02 million metric tons, down 5.5 percent, both on year-on-year basis. Japan's shipbuilding industry booked 317,014 tons of ordinary steel products in the given month, down 4.4 percent compared to May 2014.