In March this year, domestic steel product consumption in Japan amounted to 3.92 million metric tons, rising by 8.5 percent compared to February and declining by 7.2 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 8.8 percent year on year to 11.14 million metric tons.
In the first three months of the given year, steel product consumption in the construction sector in Japan moved down by 11.5 percent to 2.26 million metric tons, while steel product consumption in the Japanese automotive sector amounted to 2.75 million metric tons, down 2.4 percent, both on year-on-year basis. In the given period, Japan’s shipbuilding industry consumed 706,996 metric tons of steel products, down one percent compared to the same period of the previous year.