Japanese steel mills saw order volumes little changed month-on-month in April, according to the latest data from the Japan Iron and Steel Industry Federation (Jisf). A recovery in manufacturing demand helped push a small increase, Kallanish notes.

Total orders booked in April were down -1.3% m-o-m and up 1.2% year-on-year at 6.09 million tonnes. On a daily basis however, orders were up 1.95% m-o-m to almost 203,000 tonnes/day. Although construction orders were down -3.7% m-o-m to 1mt, on a daily basis they were down just -0.5% to just over 33,000 t/d. Manufacturing orders meanwhile were up 1.8% to 1.54mt, or up 5.16% to over 51,000 t/d.

On a y-o-y comparison, construction was still driving modest growth but manufacturing demand was marginally down and export orders almost unchanged. Over the financial year ending March 2017, exports are expected to weaken further with the stronger JPY and competition from China. Improving domestic demand could help to compensate for this however.