Daido Steel considers 20% price increase
Japanese specialty steel producer Daido Steel Corp announced that it plans to increase prices 20% effective for shipments as of April 1, 2005.
The average price of steel from Daido Steel was Yen 110'000 ($1'061) per ton in 2004. The company is currently in talks with customers to apply a price increase of 20%.
Company officials pointed out that the rising cost of raw materials such as nickel and molybdenum necessitated the price increase.
Nickel prices shot up more than 50% in 2004.
Daido supplies around 70% of its products to automakers, including Nissan Motor.
Moreover, Daido plans to expand its monthly
production by 8% to 120'000 to meet rising demand.