Ukraine ups pipe production and exports

The Ukrainian pipe industry continued its growth trend in October 2006. According to the data issued by the country's State Committee of Statistics, during the January-October 2006 period Ukraine increased pipe production by 13.1 percent year on year to 2.18 million metric tons. During the period in question, Ukraine exported about 1.6 million metric tons of pipes - up 15.85 percent compared to the corresponding period of 2005. However, in October alone, pipe exports decreased by 1.8 percent year on year. In the first ten months of 2006, the main foreign recipients of Ukrainian pipes were the Russian Federation, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Germany. It is worthwhile to mention that regardless of the antidumping investigation initiated by the Russian Federation against imports of Ukrainian pipes, Russian shared 48.38 percent of overall Ukrainian pipes exports during the period concerned. As for Ukraine's pipe imports, in October 2006 the figure decreased to 874,000 metric tons from 1.02 million metric tons in September.