Japan JFE plans to expand Middle East and Indian market

Sep.22 MetalBiz--With the development of emerging economies, Japan large-scaled steel enterprise-JFE, began to shift the export strategy and planed to expand the steel markets in Middle East and India.

China and S.Korea are the major export markets for Japan, accounted for 40% of Japan's steel export. In order to expand the new market, JFE decided to cooperate with the local enterprises in Middle East and Africa and set up large-scaled blast furnace with 100mln tons of annual crude steel production in the future several years, which is equivalent to Japan' s total steel output.

At present, JFE is discussing with enterprises in Middle East, India, Indo-China, Africa and locals on cooperation issues.

Japan's crude steel production was 105.5mln tons in 2008 (till late March of 2009), down 13.2% from 2007. Japan's Economy forecasted that Japan's crude steel output in 2009 will be at 9,000 tons around.