China's steel exports to EU fall 7.3% in the first 3 quarters of 2023
Affected by the supply and demand changes in the domestic and international steel markets, China's steel exports to the EU in the first nine months of this year fell year-on-year, and have shown a continuous downward trend in recent years.
Firstly, China's steel exports to the EU have shown a downward trend and accounted for a relatively small proportion. Since 2016, China's steel exports to the EU have continued to decline, especially after the EU implemented a series of safeguard measures in 2018, with the export volume falling to 2.09 million tons in 2020. In 2021-2022, affected by the Russia and Ukraine conflict, the EU's steel supply was insufficient, and China's total steel exports to the EU increased slightly, reaching 3.89 million tons in 2022. Nevertheless, the amount of steel exports to the EU only accounted for 5.8% of China's total steel exports, and 8.0% of the EU's total steel imports in 2022. In the first nine months of this year, China exported 2.85 million tons of steel to the EU, a year-on-year decrease of 7.3%, and the proportion of steel exports to the EU only accounted for 4.3% of China's total steel exports. Data shows that the EU is not a major China's steel exports destination, and China is not a major source of steel imports for the EU either.
Secondly, China's steel companies attached great importance to meeting the requirements of downstream users in the EU, and have undergone a long period of product development and market cultivation. They have gradually established a supply chain system to serve downstream users in the EU with rigorous international technical and product certification. The achievements were not easily won, and high-performance/cost ratio Chinese steel has played a positive role in helping EU steel users improve their international market competitiveness. At the same time, China also imports about 1 million tons of steel per year from the EU.
Sino-EU steel trade face up with challenges.
Although China's steel exports to the EU are not large in scale or high in proportion, and are showing a downward trend, there has been an escalation in trade remedy investigations against Chinese steel products by the EU in recent years, which has seriously interfered with normal Sino-EU steel trade. According to data from the Ministry of Commerce's Trade Remedy Information Network, the EU has launched 17 trade remedy investigations against steel products originating from China from 2011, including 10 anti-dumping investigations, three "double-reverse" merger investigations, and one safeguard measure investigation. Among these cases, three have been ultimately settled without measures being taken, while most of the other cases are still under measures during implementation or have been ruled to extend their implementation period. Recently, China's Ministry of Commerce responded to the EU's plan to launch anti-subsidy investigations against Chinese steel companies, by pointing out that the EU has long implemented various trade restrictions on imported steel products, including global steel safeguard measures that have been criticized for years. The EU steel market has become one of the markets with many trade barriers and high product prices in the world.
For a long time, China's steel industry has focused on domestic market demand, supporting national economic development, and not encouraging massive exports of steel products, especially semi-finished products and mid-to-low-end products. At the same time, China is actively promoting steel products to participate in international supply chain construction, ensuring stable global industrial and supply chains, and providing lower cost and higher quality steel products for global consumers. We hope that Sino-EU steel trade can continue to move forward in a fair and reasonable trade environment, serving both upstream and downstream steel industries in both China and Europe together.