In December last year, domestic steel product consumption in Japan amounted to 4.16 million metric tons, up by 1.1 percent compared to November and falling by 13 percent year on year, according to the data released by the Japan Iron and Steel Association (JISF). Meanwhile, in 2019, domestic steel product consumption in Japan decreased by 7.4 percent year on year to 52.42 million metric tons.
In 2019, steel product consumption in the construction sector of Japan decreased by 9.4 percent to 10.44 million metric tons, while steel product consumption in the Japanese automotive sector amounted to 12.77 million metric tons, down 6.6 percent, both on year-on-year basis. In the given period, Japan's shipbuilding industry consumed 3.87 million metric tons of steel products, up 4.9 percent compared to the previous year.