In March this year, domestic steel product consumption in Japan amounted to 4.22 million metric tons, up by 6.6 percent compared to February and falling by 3.3 percent year on year, according to the data released by the Japan Iron and Steel Association (JISF). Meanwhile, in the January-March period this year, domestic steel consumption in the country dropped by 3.5 percent year on year to 12.21 million metric tons.
In the first three months of this year, steel product consumption in the construction sector in Japan rose by 2.4 percent to 2.55 million metric tons, while steel product consumption in the Japanese automotive sector amounted to 2.81 million metric tons, down 12.5 percent, both on year-on-year basis. In the given period, Japan’s shipbuilding industry consumed 714,259 metric tons of steel products, rising by 15.0 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.