Totaling 199,000 tons with a drop of 19.1% in domestic sales and 1.4% in exports Sales of ordinary steel pipes were found to have decreased in May compared with the same month last year. In May, the combined sales performance by 9 major domestic steel pipe makers was tallied at 199,027 tons, down 6.4% from 212,635 tons in the identical month of 2003. Of those sales, domestic sales posted 150,430 tons, down 1.4% from the year-earlier period's 152,571 tons and exports 48,597 tons with a year-on-year plunge of 19.1% from60,064 tons. Affected by an increase in the selling price for steel pipes, domestic sales became sluggish in May, resulting in such contraction not only from a year ago, but also from a month earlier. The aggregate sales of steel pipes from January throughMay came to 1,047,740 tons, up 0.3% from 1,044,252 tons in the corresponding period last year, marking 772,985 tons in domestic sales with a year-on-year drop of 0.9% from 779,618 tons and 274,755 tons in exports with a rise of 3.8%. jieun@snmnews.com