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Nippon Steel to seek 40% price hike   22 Apr 2008

9:52 AM Apr 22, 2008

Reuters

Nippon Steel Corp, Japan's top steelmaker, plans to ask automakers and other customers to accept a nearly 40 per cent increase in prices for its mainstay steel products to offset soaring raw materials prices, the Nikkei business daily reported.

Other major steelmakers will likely follow suit, but makers of cars, machinery and electronics products are expected to resist such a large price hike, the newspaper said.

Steel products currently average roughly 80,000 yen ($US775) per tonne, and Nippon Steel had earlier sought a hike of about 25 per cent, assuming that high materials prices would results in a 2 trillion yen increase in costs in the steel industry.