In February this year, domestic steel product consumption in Japan amounted to 3.61 million metric tons, rising by 0.1 percent compared to January and declining by 8.8 percent year on year, according to the data released by the Japan Iron and Steel Association (JISF). Meanwhile, in the January-February period this year, domestic steel consumption in the country dropped by 9.6 percent year on year to 7.22 million metric tons.
In the first two months of the given year, steel product consumption in the construction sector in Japan moved down by 13.8 percent to 1.40 million metric tons, while steel product consumption in the Japanese automotive sector amounted to 1.88 million metric tons, down 16.0 percent, both on year-on-year basis. In the given period, Japan’s shipbuilding industry consumed 458,193 metric tons of steel products, up 2.6 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.