In February this year, domestic steel product consumption in Japan amounted to 2.79 million metric tons, down by 3.0 percent compared to January and by 0.8 percent year on year, according to the data released by the Japan Iron and Steel Association (JISF). Meanwhile, in the January-February period of 2023, domestic steel consumption in the country increased by 0.7 percent year on year to 7.27 million metric tons.
In the first two months of the given year, steel product consumption in the construction sector in Japan moved down by 0.06 percent to 1.39 million metric tons, while steel product consumption in the Japanese automotive sector amounted to 1.79 million metric tons, down 4.7 percent, both on year-on-year basis. In the given period, Japan’s shipbuilding industry consumed 468,218 metric tons of steel products, up 2.2 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.