The trade deficit for steel products in the EU during the early months of 2017 increased significantly, Kallanish learns from regional steelmakers' association Eurofer. This was primarily due to a reduction in longs exports and an increase in flat imports.

In January/February this year the average monthly trade deficit reached almost 1.3 million tonnes, from a volume of 902,000t during the same period of 2016.

The deficit for flat products reached 741,000 tonnes/month on average, mainly supported by the increase of imports of coated coils, while HRC imports were down during the period compared with 2016. India in particular increased its volumes and replaced the lower tonnages from Russia and Ukraine, Eurofer notes, indicating countries not hit by anti-dumping investigations are quick to replace those included in the investigations.

In the long products sector, where Europe historically has a trade surplus driven by exports to North Africa, the trend during the first two months of 2016 was very negative. During the period the trade surplus was calculated at just 77,000 t/m on average, down from the 335,000 t/m average in the same period in 2016.

The fall in trade surplus for long products is mainly linked with the delay in issuing export licences from the Algerian government, as reported.

Overall Eurofer remains concerned regarding imports in the EU. The association notes that in January/February, imports increased by 1.2% year-on-year (according to provisional data), slowing down the recovery seen in 2016, but still not showing signs of an important decline.

In 2016 overall imports in the EU increased 9% y-o-y, reaching the highest level since 2009, exports in 2016 declined 11% y-o-y