Metals Demand in Japan to Drop as Power Cuts Shut Factories
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Demand for industrial metals in Japan, Asia’s biggest aluminum buyer, may tumble as factories shut because of power cuts and damage after the country’s strongest earthquake and subsequent tsunami, analysts said.
“We have a drop in demand as well as production,” Akio Shibata, chief representative at Marubeni Research Institute, said today. “Demand will slow for sometime as the future is uncertain because of the power shortages. We have no idea how long this will last,” he said. Japan is also the world’s second-largest buyer of copper ore after China.