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Japan’s March crude steel output falls 4.3%

Japan’s crude steel output in March fell 4.3% from a year earlier, the Japan Iron and Steel Federation said on Thursday, citing continued slow automobile production because of microchip and parts shortages.

Output in Japan, the world’s third-largest steel producer, came in at 7.96 million tonnes for March. It was the third drop in as many months but the figure, which is not seasonally adjusted, was up 8.9% from February.

“The shortage of semiconductor and other parts continued to weigh on automobile production, reducing steel demand,” said a researcher at the federation, adding that output was also curbed by the shutdown of a blast furnace for repair.

Nippon Steel Corp 5401.T, Japan’s biggest steelmaker, shut down one of its blast furnaces in Nagoya for relining in late January, expecting operations to resume in June.

For the January-March quarter, Japan’s crude steel output fell 2.9% from a year earlier to 23.01 million tonnes.

But for the financial year to March 31, output rose 15.5% from the previous year to 95.64 million tonnes, marking the first annual increase in five years as demand picked up after a pandemic-induced slump.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Yuka Obayashi Editing by David Goodman)

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