Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co Ltd , Japan's top electric-arc furnace steelmaker, said on Monday it would keep product prices unchanged for November delivery, reflecting lacklustre demand at home.

Tokyo Steel's pricing strategy is closely watched by Asian rivals such as South Korea's Posco and Hyundai Steel Co and China's Baoshan Iron & Steel Co (Baosteel) that export to Japan.

The company will keep prices for its main product, H-shaped beams used in construction, at 65,000 yen ($631.70) per tonne and prices for steel bars, including rebar, at 47,000 yen a tonne.

The company cut product prices by up to 13 percent for October.

"The last month's price cut has helped diminish market speculations that prices would go further down, but overall demand is not resilient enough to bolster prices," Tokyo Steel's managing director, Kiyoshi Imamura, told reporters on Monday.

Local demand is expected to improve late this year or early next year as construction for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games and redevelopment projects in the Tokyo metropolitan area are set to start next summer, Imamura added.

 

Source : reuters.com

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