The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan aggregated the production plans of each Japanese steel manufacturers in the Q2 of fiscal 2013 and released its results on 1st.

According to this, the planned production quantity of crude steel of this quarter is 27,833,000 tonne, slightly down 0.9% from the previous quarter and also down 0.7% compared to the forecasted demand of this quarter.

One of the factors to decrease is that the electric furnace mills carry out production curtailment in the summer time. Compared with the same period last year, it increases by 2.1% from the same period last year. It increases in the same period for 3 years in a row.

The production quantity of steel products is 24,313 tonne per tonne, up 3.7% from the same period last year and also up 1.0% from the previous quarter. In the backdrop, there are increases of specialty steel products and steel sheets/coils and export related to energy.

However, the production quantity for the domestic market is 12,178 tonne per tonne, up 3.8% ditto and up 1.3% ditto. That for export is 6,820 tonne per tonne, up 1.5% ditto and up 0.5% ditto.