Who are the EU's main iron and steel trading partners?
In 2024, the EU exported iron and steel and related articles worth €77.8 billion and imported €73.1 billion. This resulted in a trade surplus of €4.7 billion, according to the latest Eurostat data.
Compared to 2019, exports increased by 15.2% and imports increased by 23.7%. Despite these monetary increases, the physical weight of exports fell by 17.3%, while imports by 1.6%.
This shows "that the increase in value was mainly driven by price increases," according to Eurostat. Turkey was one of the main partners for both exports and imports in 2024 of iron and steel.
The country ranked first in exports with a total of 6.2 billion euros and third in imports with 3.5 billion euros.
The United States was the second largest export partner with 5.4 billion euros of iron and steel, followed by the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Mexico.
Between 2019 and 2024, iron and steel exports to Mexico increased by 54.1% and to the United States by 51.1%, while imports from India increased by 89.2% and from South Korea by 43.0%.
India was the top importer of iron and steel with €3.9 billion. South Korea followed with €3.6 billion, China with €3.5 billion and the United Kingdom with €3.2 billion.
What are the EU's plans for steel imports?
The European Commission has announced plans to tighten import quotas to reduce inflows by another 15% from April. The move is aimed at preventing a flood of cheap steel into the European market following new tariffs imposed by the United States.
European steelmakers already struggling with high energy prices and competition from Asia and other regions have warned that the EU could become a dumping ground for cheap steel diverted from the US market, potentially threatening European steel mills.
"In the space of a few years, global overcapacities particularly in Asia have hit our factories' order books hard," said Commission Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné as he presented an action plan for the steel and metals industries.
"This is priority number one: We must protect our steel mills from unfair foreign competition - wherever it may come from," Séjourné added.
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