Korea July Ferrous Scrap imports drop to below 500,000 tons for the first time in 3 months

SOUTH KOREA August 22 2016 3:30 PM

SEOUL (Scrap Register): As per the Korean administration statistics, steel scrap imports volume of Korea during July has seen a drastic fall for the first time in three months, the monthly imports dropped to less than 500000.

Korea’s scrap imports totaled 482000 tons in July this year, which is down by 5.3% when matched with the prior month. July 2016 imports were down sharply by 13.7 percent when compared with last year. During July 2015, Korea imported around 560000 tons of steel scrap.

During July Japan was the key exporter to Korea, steel scrap imports from Japan totaled 289000 tons, accounting for nearly 60% of total imports. The imports from Japan witnessed year-on-year decline of 9.6%. The scrap imports from the US too declined by 11.2% year-on-year to 60,000 tons during the month.

The country’s cumulative scrap imports during the initial seven-month period of the year totaled 3.298 million tons. The imports during the period were marginally down by 1.1% when matched with the corresponding period last year. The monthly imports have averaged at 471,000 tons during the year. The yearly imports are estimated to touch 5.65 million tons during 2016.