And the low yen, Japanese yen is also an issue as well. And there was a lot of Korean steel going to Japanese market, but there was the internal adjustment mechanism to band the lower, the import of Japan of the steel. So there are some concerns surrounding this issue. But when it comes to the Japanese actually products, it’s very much limited for the use of the shipbuilders and so forth. So we decided to maintain our August price and we will continue to strengthen our relationship with the clients to defend the domestic. And so we believe that the domestic market will be less impacted. And as for the automotive sector, the automotive sales will increase. So we believe that the steel plates demand will be quite good. And when it comes to the shipbuilding, the new ship prices are also increasing as well recently.
So if the shipbuilding sector actually sees a higher profit, that will not very much impact us. But since the construction sector and also household appliance sector are showing a downturn recently, we believe that these sectors will need some time to recover.
Lee Kyung-seop: So I would like to share with you the answer for lithium. I think you asked three questions. So first is the lithium price outlook for second half and in the mid to long-term. So this year and next year, the lithium prices, as for the FX market and with McKinsey outlook, it will be about $50,000 to $40,000. And in the mid- to long-term, by 2030, for example, we look towards like US$27,000 to US$30,000 range. But since there are lots of changes in the market, it’s very difficult to give you a long-term outlook. But the EV demand that we see, as for the EV demand, there was the economic downturn and there was a reduced subsidies in Europe and China. And there was a drastic actually downturn of the EV sales. But things have turned around and by end May, the EVs were sold in 480,000 in numbers.
So that’s about 40% increase in sales of cars and also the 50% increase in sales of batteries. So overall, you can say that the EV sales will also increase by 42% this year. So, the market expects about 15 million units for EVs. So we believe that there is a growing demand for EVs as we had planned. So it actually surpasses the target. But as for the Chinese lithium or lithium in China, it is very much fluctuating according to the domestic — Chinese domestic market conditions. So when it comes to the supply, the supply is going up. So, I believe that the lithium prices will hover around $40,000 to $50,000 in the market. And the reason we expanded our lithium capacity to 430,000 by 2030 is from — so that was an increase from 300,000. That was because as we implemented this business, so we came to gain more confidence and commitment to this business.
That explains one of the backgrounds. And we plan to become a global top three lithium player by 2030. And as for the [indiscernible] and the Chinese competitor, they are like global number one and number two. And their goals have also been adjusted upward as well. There’s — they have adjusted to 500,000 for example. So that is why we are also increasing our target in line of the trend. But one of the biggest reason is that we want to apply a bottom up approach to all of our plans and projects and that is what we are doing. So we believe that the goal that we said is quite feasible. And the EBITDA margin was lower, because as I said in the lithium price outlook in the mid to long-term, actually, the EBITDA margin was lower due to that outlook as well compared to our target planned or set last year.
