In March of the current year, steel product orders, including specialty steels, booked by domestic sectors in Japan amounted to 4.81 million metric tons, up 0.42 percent compared to March 2013 and up 2.02 percent compared to February, according to the data released by the Japan Iron and Steel Association (JISF). Meanwhile, in the first quarter of this year, domestic steel product orders in Japan increased by 3.01 percent year on year to 14.41 million metric tons.
In March of the current year, steel product orders in Japan booked by the domestic construction sector decreased by 4.96 percent to 1.05 million mt, while steel product orders booked by the Japanese automotive sector came to 1.03 million metric tons, increasing by 0.59 percent, both including special steel and on year-on-year basis. Japan's shipbuilding industry booked 332,648 metric tons of steel products in March this year, up 8.45 percent compared to March 2013.