According to the official announcement from JFE Steel Corporation, one of the steelmakers in Japan, JFE Steel decided to shut down its blast furnace in Kawasaki in the 2023 fiscal year (April 2023 to March 2024).

The decision would influence around 4 million tons of crude steel output, which counted as around 13% of the total.

The main reason for that decision was caused by a weak future in Japan.

After the Chinese economy started to expand and export more and more steel to the other countries, which impacted strongly on the Japanese steel companies' margin rate, it also provided great pressure to JFE Steel Corporation.