In January this year, steel product orders, including specialty steels, booked by domestic sectors in Japan amounted to 4.36 million metric tons, down 2.8 percent compared to December and falling 4.3 percent year on year, according to the data released by the Japan Iron and Steel Association (JISF).
In January, ordinary steel product orders in Japan booked by the domestic construction sector decreased by 8.6 percent to 848,523 metric tons, while steel product including special steel orders booked by the Japanese automotive sector amounted to 1.07 million metric tons, down 2.9 percent, both on year-on-year basis. Japan's shipbuilding industry booked 344,944 metric tons of ordinary steel products in the given month, up 16.8 percent compared to the same month of 2015.