[Ferro-Alloys.com]According to data from Japan Iron and Steel Federation (JISF), Japan’s crude steel output reported the largest annual drop in October on slow domestic car production and rise of imports of construction steel.

The October output dropped 6.7% from the same period last year to 8.84 million tons and it was the biggest fall since January.

Japan’s automobile production declined due to government’s stop on subsidy of environmentally friendly cars in September. Also, the politics tension between China and Japan hurt the sales of Japanese cars in China.

Besides, the strong yen also attracted more Asian imported steel which made the Japanese steelmaker to cut output.