Production and Technology of Iron and Steel in Japan during 1995

摘要

Getting out of the recession of two years and a half, the economy of our country in 1994 resumed recovery though at a moderate pace. However, due to the continuance of unprecedentedly high yen level and other adverse elements, corporate earnings were further reduced, causing a continued adjustment of excessive capacity, which in turn retarded the recovery of private equipment investment. As to the principal industries having demand for steel products, despite the buoyancy of the demands for housing industry, neither non-housing-related demand nor the government-funded demand got out of a sluggish condition. Manufacturing industry also remained in adverse circumstances such as the transfer of production to overseas countries accelerated by high yen and an increased imports of manufactured goods. However, through the latter half of the year, helped by the steady domestic sale of electric appliances and automobiles, various sectors of manufacturing industry generally took a favorable turn. Under such circumstances, although the domestic demand for steel products recorded the worst decline at the beginning of the year, it showed a steady recovery throughout the latter half of the year, and marked as a whole year a slight increase over the previous year. On the other hand, although the exports mainly of pig iron and semimanufactures to the U.S.A. and Korea showed a certain increase, as the exports to China decreased substantially, the exports on the whole marked only a slight increase over the previous year.