In January-June this year, Ukraine saw a huge increase in its rolled steel product exports to China from 11,000 mt in the same period last year to 970,000 mt, director of the state monitoring and consulting company Ukrpromzovnishexpertyza, Vladimir Vlasyuk, has stated
According to Mr. Vlasyuk, such an increase in the Ukrainian exports to China was conditioned by the decrease of the production cost of the Ukrainian steel products, mostly due to the reduction of iron ore and coke prices. "Currently, the lowest production cost of steel is in Russia at $200-210/mt, followed by Ukraine at $255/mt, China at $330/mt and Turkey at $370/mt," Mr. Vlasyuk stated.
Meanwhile, according to the information issued by Ukrpromzovnishexpertyza, in January-June 2009 Ukraine's exports of rolled steel products to the Middle East decreased by ten percent to 2.863 million mt, the volume to EU countries went down by 50 percent to 1.426 million mt, while the export figure for the US dropped by 70 percent to 503,000 mt.
According to Ukrainian information-analytical center Gosvneshinform, during the first six months of 2009 Ukraine exported rolled steel products for a total value of $4.8 billion.