According to data provided by the Japan’s Ministry of Finance, the country exported 1.02 million tons of hot rolled (HR) steel flat products in April, falling by 20.3% from a month ago while increasing by 1.6% year on year.

In the first four months of this year, the country’s exports of hot rolled steel flat products totaled 4.3 million tons, decreasing by 3.9% in comparison of that in the same period of the previous year.

In the given period of time, South Korea was the largest importer of the Japanese HR steel flat products with 1.3 million tons, decreasing by 18.8%; Thailand was the second largest one with 587,651 tons, increasing by 10.1%; China was the third largest one with 459,581 tons, declining by 14.1%, all compared to that in the same period of a year ago.