Japan's FY24 crude steel output certain to fall YoY

A forecast for Japanese steel demand in terms of crude steel for the coming January-March quarter, the last quarter of the country's current fiscal year, announced last week by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), contained a few encouraging observations but the outlook for the full fiscal's steel output was bleak.

Based in next quarter's production, the full fiscal result for April-March is likely to reach 83.72 million tonnes, lower by around 4% from the fiscal 2023 total and would be the second lowest since fiscal 1970, METI's data show, the lowest being the 82.78 million tonnes Japan produced during