Latin America- The Third Favored Destination of Chinese Steel Exports

SPOKANE (Scrap Monster): The latest trade statistics published by the Latin American Steel Association (Alacero) suggests marginal jump in Chinese steel products exports to the Latin American countries during the initial eight months of 2017. The LatAm imports totaled 5 million tons (Mt) out of the 52.6 Mt exported by China to world countries during this period. The regional imports represented 9.5% share of total Chinese exports and were up marginally by 1% over the previous year.

Latin America emerged as the third preferred destination of Chinese steel exports, after South Korea and Vietnam. The total Chinese steel products export volume of 52.6 Mt was comprised of 48.2 Mt of finished steel and 4.3 Mt of steel-derivative products. South Korean imports totaled 8.2 Mt, accounting for 16% share of total Chinese exports. The imports by Vietnam totaled 5.4 Mt, accounting for 11% of Chinese market share.

Out of the 5.0 Mt of steel shipments from China to the Latin American region, 4.4 Mt were finished steel and 562,000 tons were steel-derivative products. The region was the primary importer of steel-derivative products from China, representing 13% of total Chinese exports. The other main global destinations of Chinese steel-derivative products exports were the Philippines (281,000 tons) and India (267,000 tons).

The primary importer of Chinese steel in the region during Jan-Aug ’17 was Central America, comprising of Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, with imports of nearly 1 Mt, accounting for 20% of the regional imports. The second largest regional importer of Chinese steel was Chile. The imports by Chile totaled 916,000 tons, constituting 18% share of regional imports. In third place was Peru with 698,000 tons. The imports by the country accounted for 14% regional share.

During the first eight months of 2017, several countries reported considerable increase in imports of Chinese steel. The countries which recorded major jump in import volumes were Ecuador (+57%), Dominican Republic (+37%), Brazil (+35%), Argentina (+35%) and Chile (+13%). On the other hand, imports by Cuba and Venezuela recorded sharp decline of nearly 50% each during Jan-Aug ’17. The imports by Paraguay too registered 19% decline when matched with Jan-Aug ’16.

By product type, flat products constituted 67% of the total imports of finished steel and steel-derivative products from China. The Latin American imports of flat products totaled 3.4 Mt during the first eight months of the current year. Long steel imports totaled 901,000 tons in Jan-Aug ’17. The main long steel product imported by the region from China was wire rods. The imports of wire rods totaled 473,000 tons.