General view

The countries in Europe and the USA appealed to WTO an illegality of the regulations for exports of rare metals enforced by the central government of China and WTO has judged as the regulations are illegal. The regulations enforced by China have mainly applied to the quantities and the high duties of ferroalloys to be exported from China and it is marked to see how does the central government of China react to this judgment. However, so far Chinese side has shown no reaction to WTO's judgment and domestic prices of these materials in China do not move yet. On the other hand, reflecting the monetary crisis in Europe, the exchange rate of Japanese Yen against US-Dollar has moved again to strengthen and the current Yen rate has come up to a higher level than USD1.00 : JPY 80 after an interval of 4 months. Normally, the strengthened exchange rate of Japanese Yen against US Dollar causes a merit for imports but the current situation contradicts and there is a strong mood in the market that prices of bulk ferroalloys to be imported into Japan and to be sold on Yen base will have an anxiety to weaken further. Therefore, the trading companies concerned have become more cautious to commit new contracts for imports of ferroalloys.