South Korea's exports of tinplate increased by 15.7 percent to 187,458 mt in the first half of the current year compared with 162,063 mt in the same period last year, while the country's tinplate imports in the given period totaled 8,488 mt, up 36.6 percent year on year.
In the January-June period, Indonesia purchased 22,777 mt of South Korean-made tinplate, becoming the largest destination for South Korean tinplate exports, followed by Malaysia, Italy and Thailand, which purchased 22,248 mt, 21,572 mt and 20,715 mt, respectively.
Sluggish sales of tinplate in the domestic market was a factor which boosted overseas sales of tinplate in the first half of the year. Even though export prices of tinplate were not so good, overseas shipments of the product increased by more than 25,000 mt in the first half of the year compared with the same period of the previous year.
Meanwhile, South Korea's imports of tinplate, which began to surge rapidly last year, increased at a faster pace in the first half of this year. The largest overseas supplier was China, from which South Korea imported 4,227 mt of low-priced tinplate in the first six months of the year. Imports of Taiwanese tin plates shot up by 135.5 percent year on year to 2,730 mt in the January-June period of this year, while inbound shipments of Japanese tinplate plunged by 53.5 percent year on year due to South Korean consumers' preference for low-priced products.