The Japanese mills' negotiations on electro galvanized steel sheets for Asia have almost ended for those prices to be increased by USD 30 to 50 for March shipment from those for February shipment. In March shipment, price increase of USD 50 was carried out to build the starting point toward negotiations for shipment of next quarter (April to June). As a result, prices for March shipment became mostly the level of USD 750 FOB which is expected to become the starting prices for the Japanese mills.
It is said that POSCO of Korea also offered price increase by USD 20 to 50, and made contracts at the similar price level to the Japanese ones. In this week, negotiations for April shipments are seen to start, and attention is drawn to what extent the company sets out price increase.
In case of the Japanese mills, they have a policy to realize prices increase by more than USD 100 for next quarter shipment. As price hike of iron ore, raw materials for a blast furnace is substantial, they are unavoidable to pass their cost increase on to their products. They are to ask for price increase of EG sheets by more than USD 100 as same as that of other coated sheets. With this, their goal is to make their prices the level of USD 850 FOB. They say to be to realize USD 800 FOB soonest possible in negotiations of every month.
Recovery in demand for office automation equipment has not been discernible yet just like China's sluggish export to Europe. However, it seems that drastic inventory adjustment fades out as the Japanese customers in China reduced their inventory more than their planed one. As a result, there are no Japanese mills of which contracted quantity decreased for March shipment despite of price increase. Instead, it is said that there were many customer to have wanted to increase their purchasing quantity from anticipation of a rise.
The Japanese mills are expected to start negotiations on EG sheets for next quarter shipment as early as in early March. Watching the price movement of raw materials, they will fix their final offer prices.
