According to the Economic and Steel Market Outlook 2021-2022/Q1 2020 Report from the Economic Committee of the European Steel Association (EUROFER), total EU imports of steel products from third countries decreased by 25.4 percent year on year in the third quarter of 2020.
In the first 11 months of last year, finished steel product imports fell by 17 percent year on year due to a decrease of 16 percent year on year in imports of flat products and a drop of 20 percent in imports of long products.
EUROFER said that Turkey, Russia, South Korea, India and Ukraine were the largest finished steel import sources for the EU market in the given period. These five countries accounted for 65 percent of total EU finished steel imports in the first 11 months this year.
In the given period, imports of finished products from Turkey decreased by 31 percent, imports from China fell by 29 percent and imports from India dropped by 28 percent, while imports from Russia increased by five percent, all year on year.
According to the EUROFER report, flat product imports fell by 21 percent and long product imports decreased by 42 percent in the third quarter, both year on year. In the first 11 months of 2020, flat product imports decreased by 16 percent and long product imports fell by 20 percent, both year on year.
EUROFER noted that, while the final safeguards may have undergone some improvements in their design, the safeguard measures alone will not be enough to counter the risk. It said that the risk is that any growth of EU steel demand in early 2021 would mostly benefit imports due to the unused quota transfer mechanism. This is already partly reflected in imports’ market shares of EU steel consumption that have remained unchanged even in times of plummeting steel demand, EUROFER stated. Moreover, excess capacity is still being built up without solid economic justification in countries such as China, Indonesia, Iran, Russia or Turkey.