Egyptian steelmaker EZDK's marketing director George Matta has said that there is a large structural deficit in the
Middle East, pointing to the steel supply shortages in the region which stood at around 9 million metric tons in 2001 and have reached approx. 10.8 million metric tons in 2006, in spite of the new capacities added.
Matta went on to say that the GCC (Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf) area's demand for steel, taken separately had reached 15.9 million mt this year, while total demand in the GCC, N.
Africa and East Med amounted to 35.1 million. Against this, however, output remains at around 24.3 million tons. Of course, several additional new capacities are expected to come on stream during the next few years, particularly in the GCC countries. Nevertheless, growth in steel demand is also expected to continue, thanks to robust oil earnings, though perhaps at a slightly slower rate, decreasing from 5.6% this year to 5.3% and then to 4.9% per annum, according to the projections.
Mr. Matta predicts that the steel shortage in the GCC countries will decrease to just 1.3 million tons by 2010 – based on a forecasted crude steel capacity of 19.8 million tons for the same year. However, he also mentioned that the total shortage in the region for the year in question would be 9.4 million tons, with the East Med countries being the largest importers by that time.