Exports of steel semi-finished products grew by 13.5% to 6 million tons

According to the customs statistics provided by the State Tax Service of Ukraine, in January–October, Ukraine’s exports of steel semi-finished products grew by 13.5% to 6 million tons compared to the same period of 2018.

In monetary terms, Ukraine’s exports of semi-finished products fell by 2% to $2.51 billion.

Andrii Tarasenko, GMK Center Chief Analyst, explained the statistics presented by the State Tax Service. According to him, exports of semi-finished products grew on account of slabs, while exports of square billets shrank.  In October, Dnipro Metallurgical Plant (DMZ) was suspended, while Dniprovskyi Iron and Steel Works (DMK) suspended production of semi-finished products meant for export.

“Ukrainian plants lost their competitiveness as a result of the fall of prices for scrap and therefore billets. In addition, export reduction resulted from the final decision on imposing of safeguard duties on billets in Egypt, which used to be an important market for our companies,” said Mr Tarasenko.

The GMK Center also specified that slab exports grew mainly on account of supplies of Ilyich Iron and Steel Works of Mariupol. The company managed to increase production and exports of this product as a result of putting into operation the continuous casting machine No. 4 in December last year.

The share of semi-finished products in the structure of Ukraine’s foreign trade remained at 6%. The largest importers of this product remained the same: Italy (32%), Egypt (14%) and Turkey (7%).

However, in the past ten months, these countries reduced their shares in the structure of Ukraine’s exports of semi-finished products, especially Turkey whose share in the first nine months of the current year was 14%.

As reported earlier, in January–September, Ukraine increased exports of semi-finished products by 8.2% to $2.24 billion compared to the same period of 2018. The volume of exports of semi-finished products grew by 9.4% to 5.36 million tons.

In 2018, Ukraine’s exports of semi-finished products made of carbon steel remained at the 2017 level — 6.3 million tons. In monetary terms, exports of these products grew by 18.2% to $3.3 billion.