According to the data issued by Russia's Ministry of Economic Development, in January this year Russia's rolled steel product demand increased by 39 percent year on year, while the country's production of finished steel went up by 12.2 percent year on year.
Accordingly, in January of the current year, Russian domestic consumption of flat steel increased by 35.7 percent year on year, while long steel consumption went up by 43.3 percent year on year. In January, the share of Russian steel products in domestic consumption amounted to 91.1 percent or 32 million mt.
Russia's exports of rolled steel products in January amounted to 1.6 million mt - down 32.7 percent year on year, including 0.6 million mt of flats (down 28.6 percent), 0.2 million mt of longs (down 31.7 percent) and 0.7 million mt of semis (down 38.8 percent).
Meanwhile, in January this year, Russia's imports of finished steel increased to 21.4 percent year on year to 0.32 million mt due to the strong rise in imports of longs to 0.16 million mt (up 126.4 percent) and the decrease in flats imports by 11.6 percent year to year to 0.16 million mt. However, Russia's imports of finished steel did not reach the pre-crisis level of January 2008, i.e., 0.37 million mt.