Japan's iron ore imports fell by 16pc on the year to 7mn t in May, mostly because of lower shipments from the country's major suppliers including Australia.
- Japan's iron ore imports from its top supplier Australia fell by 22pc on the year to 3.3mn t, data released by the country's finance ministry on 27 June show.
- Purchases from Brazil, the country's second-largest iron ore supplier, fell to 2.4mn t, down by 22pc from a year earlier.
- Japan imports mostly agglomerated or non-agglomerated iron ore and Brazil is the largest supplier of the former, for which deliveries slightly fell by 1.4pc on the year to 430,611t.
- Imports from Canada more than doubled on the year to 719,535t.
| Japan's iron ore imports | 000t | ||
| May '25 | May '24 | y-o-y % ± | |
| Australia | 3,337 | 4,288 | -22.2 |
| Brazil | 2,364 | 3,031 | -22.0 |
| Canada | 720 | 336 | 114.2 |
| US | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| New Zealand | 0 | 80 | -100.0 |
| India | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| China | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| South Africa | 405 | 491 | -17.5 |
| Russia | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Mauritania | 30 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Chile | 152 | 148 | 2.5 |
| Peru | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Oman | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Others | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Total | 7,008 | 8,375 | -16.3 |
| Based on preliminary data | |||
| Source: Japanese finance ministry | |||
