Japan’s stainless steel scrap imports continue to rise in January

By Anil Mathews

TOKYO (Scrap Monster): The latest trade statistics released by the Japanese Ministry of Finance (MoF) indicates that the country’s stainless steel scrap imports continued its rising trend during the month of January this year. The monthly imports increased marginally when compared with the previous month. The imports had recorded year-on-year jump during entire calendar year 2016.

According to MoF, Japan imported 7,398 tons of stainless steel scrap during the first month of the year. This is marginally higher by 1.2% when compared with the prior month. The country’s stainless steel scrap imports had totaled 7,309 tons in December 2016. Also, the average import prices from many key sources including the US, South Korea and Taiwan increased during the month, despite the fall in LME nickel prices.

The largest supplier of stainless steel scrap to Japan during the month was South Korea. The imports from Korea totaled 4,177 tons, accounting for over 56% of the total imports by Japan during the month. Also, the imports from Korea have increased by almost 12% over the previous month. The imports from the US too increased by 11% month-on-month to total 1,122 tons. The third largest exporter of stainless steel scrap to Japan during the month was Taiwan. The Japanese imports from Taiwan amounted to 1,089 tons. However, the imports from Taiwan dropped significantly by nearly 32% when compared with the month before.

Japan had imported 7,309 tons of stainless steel scrap during December last year. The imports had dropped marginally by a little over 2% when matched with the prior month. The country’s imports of the material had totaled 7,460 tons during November 2016. The shipments from Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the US reported strong growth during the month. On the other hand, imports from China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia and Canada registered month-on-month decline in stainless steel scrap shipments to Japan. The monthly imports averaged at JPY 144,413, up by 6.3% over the previous month.

The largest exporter of stainless steel scrap to Japan during December ’16 was South Korea. The imports from Korea totaled 3,757 tons, accounting for more than 50% of the total Japanese imports during the month. The imports from Korea jumped higher by nearly 7% when matched with the month before. The stainless scrap imports from Korea had totaled 3,502 tons during Nov ‘16. In second place was Taiwan with 1,593 tons. The imports from Taiwan climbed higher from 1,515 tons in November. The other primary exporters of stainless steel scrap to Japan were the USA (1,011 tons), Thailand (301 tons), Indonesia (212 tons), Singapore (143 tons) and Hong Kong (39 tons).

The cumulative imports during the entire year 2016 had totaled 100,911 tons. The yearly imports had registered 12% jump when matched with 2015. Japan had imported 89,951 tons of stainless steel scrap during the entire year 2015. The largest exporters during the year were: South Korea (49,354 tons), Taiwan (21,946 tons), USA (13,481 tons), Hong Kong (3,130 tons) and Indonesia (2,849 tons).