ASUKA ALUMINIUM NEWS NO. 626 AUGUST 2013
Bearish aluminum and bullish dollar
Looking back at the transition of aluminum market at the London Metal Exchange
and the US dollar against Japanese yen at Tokyo FX market, it is a remarkable symmetry that aluminum is weak and dollar is strong in the first half of 2013 as the charton page one shows.
Since September aluminum market has been steady for six months supported by
the big expectation of major governments’ money supply policy and Chinese public
investment. However in 2013, the demand of aluminum does not increase and thestock at LME warehouses heaps up to more than 5 million ton.
While the extremely low money rate is worried about, and the big inflow of fundmoney seems to stop. It is thought that the prime cause of recent bearish aluminum
market.
Contrarily, the US dollar has been bought up successively reflecting the gap ofmoney rate between lower yen and higher dollar. The weaker yen supports narrowly
domestic aluminum market in yen. We would like to pay attention against themovement of both markets.
The chart on page one shows aluminum at LME, thick line, and dollar against yen
at Tokyo FX market, pale line. Right scale shows dollar for aluminum, and left scale
yen for dollar.
Our summer holidays
We are pleased to notify our coming summer holidays as follows.
11 Sunday~
18 Sunday August
Import of aluminum and silicon metal in FY 2012
The Ministry of Finance recently revealed the customs clearance report of primaryaluminum ingot, aluminum alloy ingot, aluminum scrap, aluminum alloy scrap andsilicon metal in fiscal 2012 started in April 2012 and ended in March 2013. According
to this report, the comparison with the previous period as follows.
primary aluminum ingot
99.58%
aluminum alloy ingot
91.28%
aluminum scrap
94.28%
aluminum alloy scrap
71.57%
silicon metal
75.52%The import of primary aluminum ingot was almost no change on volume and export
countries, but aluminum alloy ingot decreased. Among others, China decreased 29 percent from a year earlier. It is thought that their higher costs, especially soared wages,
retarded export.
The import of aluminum alloy scrap plunged 28 per cent year on year, succeeding
the 23 per cent decrease in fiscal year 2011., which reason is thought by the increased
domestic scrap and the slacken scrap export.
Besides, the decrease of silicon metal’s import is remarkable. The import from

China decreased 27 per cent from a year earlier. The total production of aluminumalloy ingot in Japan rose 6.8 per cent in the same period, and it is very mysterious. We
have no strong sellers of silicon metal but china. We presume that Japanese aluminum alloy producers consumed a lot of silicon metal’s stock of domestic traders.
The table on page two and three shows the customs clearance in metric ton, left
side is in fiscal 2012 and right side is in fiscal 2011.
notes A. primary aluminum ingot(1) Australia (2) Russia (3) Brazil (4) Indonesia (5) New Zealand(6) South Africa (7) UAE (8) Argentine (9) Canada (10) Oman
(11) Others (12) total
B. aluminum alloy ingot(1) China (2) Russia (3) UEA (4) Australia (5) New Zealand(6) Qatar (7) USA (8) Nigeria (9) Spain (10) Malaysia (11) others(12) total
C. aluminum scrap(1) Hong Kong (2) Malaysia (3) Taiwan (4) USA (5) Thailand(6) Singapore (7) Indonesia (8) Israel (9) Vietnam (10) Belgium(11) others (12) total
D. aluminum alloy scrap(1) USA (2) UK (3) Singapore (4) Israel (5) Malaysia (6) Australia(7) Indonesia (8) Philippines (9) South Africa (10) China (11) others(12) total
E. silicon metal(1) China (2) Brazil (3) Norway (4) South Africa (5) Thailand(6) Australia (7) Kazakstan (8) USA (9) France (10) Vietnam(11) others (12) totalCompany news
The Safety Driving Center awarded us as an excellent company on managingdrivers. The photo on page three above is the testimonial and the splendid trophy
presented.
On July 23 ~ 26, we received a student from Isshiki High School for internship. Mr.
Yoshiki Tanaka, photo on page three below, experienced various actual job trainings
at various sections with us.
Everyone’s much-wanted summer holidays, or we call Bon vacation, are soon. ”The
only bad thing about vacations is that they have to end.” murmurs and mutters
Chairman Hisashi Amano.
The Japan of today
The summer heat strikes
Throughout July, formidable heat wave continued to bathe Japan. Over 20,000 heatexhaustion cases were sent to emergency hospital by ambulances in July, almost whowere elderly.
The Meteorological Agency forecasts this hot weather will remain during comingsome weeks, and at the same time appeals special caution against elderly .