Miscalculations in the official document sent by the European Commission to the World Trade Organization, proposing to extend steel safeguards by three years, have attracted the attention of market players and raised questions. On a table showing import volumes and import shares, the 2018 and 2020 data are understood to have been misplaced, resulting in a 20 percent share for imports in 2020. However, when figures for the years in question are calculated, the EU’s steel import share for 2020 turned out to be 14.8 percent and, accordingly, steel imports into the EU decreased over the last three years instead of rising.
The EU Commission recently proposed to extend the steel safeguard measures by three years, increasing the quota volumes by three percent.
Import shares are recalculated according to figures in the official document and are shown in the table below.
Year | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 |
Import volume (mt) | 18,329,000 | 21,868,000 | 26,552,000 | 29,141,000 | 30,094,000 | 34,180,000 | 29,672,000 | 25,019,000 |
Production volume (mt) | 243,945,000 | 249,855,000 | 248,763,000 | 249,204,000 | 254,925,000 | 200,416,000 | 189,459,000 | 168,675,000 |
Share of imports (%) | 7.5 | 8.80 | 10.7 | 11.7 | 11.8 | 17.1 | 15.7 | 14.8 |