Japanese steel mills worried about huge imports of galvanized steel from Korea

Since the beginning of this year, the number of imports of metal products in Japan has been steadily growing. In April alone, the amount of imports amounted to 761 thousand tons and increased by 27.6 percent compared to last year.

The Japanese steel industry maintains a high level of steel production, which is fueled by the development of the automotive industry. The demand for galvanized sheet comes mainly from the production of automobiles. And Korean products are growing in this area. At the same time, Japanese steel mills have also strengthened their positions in order not to lose sight of the situation.

Japan's imports from three countries such as China, Korea and Taiwan increased significantly. But Japanese factories are mostly concerned about imports from Korea. Since Korean firms export products at dumping prices, which are lower than domestic prices and depend on the exchange rate of the Japanese yen and Korean won. Among the steel products imported from Korea, Japanese steel mills are nervous in particular over the supply of alloyed hot-dip galvanized sheets.

Japan's imports of galvanized products in the second quarter of the last fiscal year totaled 11,900 tons, which were sourced entirely from Korea. Meanwhile, from January to March this year, the volumes increased sharply, almost 3 times up to 31.8000 tons. At the same time, there were only 2,500 tons from China. Most of them are imported from Korea.