Raymundo Díaz Oñate, president of Mexico's National Confederation of Steel Distributors (CONADIAC) announced in a press release this week that the economic recovery will probably not engage fully in the second half of 2013, but instead through 2014 and 2015 if approved structural reforms, such as energy and the tax revenue, are implemented.
While such reforms could raise the GDP by between 2 to 2.5 percent and therefore demand, margins continue to fall by price wars. Profitable sales volume has not increased and it is unlikely that could increase in the short term, according to the report.
Overall, the outlook remains very challenging for the distribution and service center sectors due to the oversupply global steel-which remains between 400 to 500 million tons. In Mexico, there is also an oversupply due to low demand and the opening of new plants, despite the drop in imports.