Currency depreciation exerts further downward pressure on demand

摘要

Demand has remained at below normal-levels for this time of year. Continued weak sentiment in SouthKorea has caused Japan to continue its efforts to find new sources of demand for its scrap outside thetraditional markets of China and South Korea (see chart). This is not a result of Japanese scrap beingprohibitively expensive but because of a sharp reduction in scrap demand from these markets. For instance,total Chinese scrap imports in July 2015 were 31.6% lower by volume than in July 2014.