SEOUL: South Korea’s imports of steel materials edged down in January from a year earlier due in part to a decline in inflows of Chinese products, industry data showed Wednesday.
According to the data by Korea Iron & Steel Association, the country imported 1.94 million tons of steel materials, down 0.1 percent from the same month a year earlier.
Imports from China, which made up over 60 percent of the total, fell 1.3 percent on-year to 1.17 million tons, while those from Japan grew 3.3 percent to 567,000 tons.
By product, imports of steel enforcement and wire rods increased, but steel plate and hot-rolled steel sheet imports both declined. In particular, the data showed that the imports of hot-rolled sheets shrank 7.5 percent.