This week's sudden rise in the value of the Japanese yen could support higher ferrous scrap offers in Asia, market sources told Fastmarkets MB on Friday January 4.
"Japanese scrapyards may increase their offers next week because of the strong yen," a scrap buyer in east Asia said. "However, this may cause difficulty in selling scrap export cargoes because Japanese scrap will become less competitive in the spot market," a scrap buyer in east Asia said.The Japanese yen rose to a high of 104.70 to the US dollar on Thursday January 3, climbing 5% over the past five weeks. However, this has been balanced by weak demand in Japan's key export markets of Vietnam and Taiwan, where buyers have reduced their bids in the face of lower offers for deep-sea scrap.And Japan has been enjoying a week-long holiday this week, which has limited the offers for Japanese H2-grade heavy scrap.Vietnam Fastmarkets' import price assessment for heavy melting scrap (HMS) 1&2 (80:20) sold into Vietnam was $316-317 per tonne cfr in the week to Friday...