The US market continues to be sluggish. Real consumption shows little sign of recovery and service centres carry on liquidating their stocks which are still too high for current demand. Transaction prices are still trending downwards. However, the mills are idling production and bringing forward a number of maintenance outages in order to bring output into line with demand. Import penetration is at a relatively low level. Canadian market transaction values continue to be eroded as the producers drop prices to try to fill their rolling schedules. Declines in sales are due mostly to inventory reduction. Service centre business activity is down, although not alarmingly. Chinese prices continue on the recent negative trend. Demand growth is slowing down at a time when significant new capacity is coming on stream and import deals, made earlier in the year, are just arriving. In Japan, direct sales to the carmakers and shipbuilders are expected to maintain a strong pace throughout the rest of the year. The inflow of offshore tonnage is starting to make an impact. Contract business is also healthy in South Korea but distribution activity is lacklustre. Taiwanese flat product prices are basically unchanged this month. Very few transactions are being concluded. Values could start to drift downwards as foreign competition, especially from mainland China, intensifies.
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