- and export prospects are not encouraging

摘要

- exports are not offering the comfort they did a year ago. Preliminary figures for performance during fiscal year 2000 (April 2000-March 2001) saw the volume, 28.3m tonnes, 4.2 percent lower than in fiscal 1999. Dollar values were also down, but as the international value of the yen was 10 percent lower, yen revenues were marginally 2.3 percent up. A combination of anti-dumping levies and restraint by mills anxious not to provoke more legal action kept exports to the USA below 2m tonnes, 23.6 percent below the fiscal 1999 level.- Shipments to Asian countries - over 77 percent of the total-were 1.6 percent lower. Just over 7m tonnes exported to ASEAN customers fell 2.6 percent short of deliveries over the previous twelvemonth. Gains in China almost made good losses in other Asian markets. Exports rose by over 1m tonnes to 4.3m tonnes, a 31 percent increase. This achievement, however, included large flows of CR coil that provoked threats - not yet substantiated - of anti - dumping action.