Daido Steel considers 20% price increase

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.