Japan's 2024 crude steel output falls to new low

A struggling domestic economy, falling steel exports and rising imports combined last year to push Japan's crude steel output down to 84.009 million tonnes for 2024, lower by 3.4% from 2023 and making for the third straight on-year decline, preliminary data from the Japan Iron & Steel Federation (JISF) published last Thursday show.

But more sobering for the Japanese steelmakers was the fact that last year's result was the third lowest on record after the 83.19 million tonnes produced in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 82.16 million tonnes recorded over three decades earlier in 1969. Significantly, the JISF data show