Import Decrease
The Korea Iron & Steel Association announced on March 11 that Korea imported 1.602 million tons of steel products in February and 1.937 million tons in January this year to show a 7.3 percent and 3.8 percent decrease from a year ago, respectively.
The import volume had increased for 14 months in a row until December last year. The decline during the first two months of this year can be attributed to a slow increase in imports from China, which takes up at least 60 percent of the total imports.
Steel product imports from China edged up 0.9 percent to 1.186 million tons in January and dropped, for the first time in 16 months, 12.3 percent to 905,000 tons in the following month. In 2014, the month-on-month increase reached 20 percent to 50 percent. The imports from Japan, in the meantime, declined 7.6 percent to 548,000 tons in January, but went up 4.9 percent to 569,000 tons in February.
The decrease in the imports from China is mainly because of the Korean government’s and companies’ efforts to keep cheap Chinese steel products at bay. For example, the Korea Trade Commission under the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy started an anti-dumping investigation over Chinese H beams in July last year.