In 2010, Belarus is expected to increase its steel product consumption by 15 percent year on year to 2.2 million mt, mainly due to the growth of demand from the key steel consuming sectors such as tractor and agricultural machine building, the automotive industry and construction, Ukraine's information-analytical portal ugmk.info has reported.
Apparent consumption of steel products (million mt):
2008 |
2009 |
Change 2009/2008 |
2010 (estimation) |
2.47 |
1.82 |
-26.3% |
2.2 |
Generally, Belarus exports about two million mt of steel products each year, while its annual steel product imports usually amount to around 2.5-3 million mt.
In the first nine months of 2010, Belarus exported 1.313 million mt of steel products - down 10.5 percent year on year, while it imported 2.6 million mt of steel products - up 36 percent year on year. The country's steel pipe exports went up by 30 percent year on year to 239,000 mt.
Belarus exports mainly long steel products (mostly to Russia, EU, North America), and imports flats and longs, and pipes (mostly from Russia and Ukraine). Accordingly, with its imports from Russia (mostly MMK and Severstal), Belarus meets 55 percent of its needs in finished steel products and 80 percent of its needs in steel pipes. In particular, in January-September 2010, Belarus's imports of steel products from Russia rose by 32 percent year on year to 2.11 million mt, i.e., 81 percent of total imports, while its imports of pipes amounted to 164,000 mt, i.e., 70 percent of its total pipe imports.
Belarus' steel products foreign trade:
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
|
Export (mt) |
1,825,900 |
1,857,300 |
1,903,900 |
1,863,900 |
Import (mt) |
3,180,700 |
3,287,600 |
3,402,700 |
2,712,600 |