According to the Italian steel producers' association Federacciai, in the January-October period last year Italy's steel imports amounted to 11.923 million metric tons, decreasing by 22.1 percent, while its steel exports totaled 15.640 million metric tons, up 8.6 percent, both compared to the same period of the previous year. In the January-June period, Italy's steel exports were up 10.3 percent while steel imports were down 27.4 percent, both year on year.
Italy's net steel exports rose to 3.717 million mt in January-October last year, compared to net imports of 905,000 mt in the same period of 2011.
'Ingots and semi-finished products' is the only category still showing a trade deficit in January-October last year. In January-October 2011, Italy recorded net flat steel product imports of 2.5 million mt, while the corresponding period of 2012 witnessed net flat steel product exports of 500,000 mt. Also, Italian net long steel product exports more than doubled in January-October 2012 compared to the same period of 2011.
During the last year, the Italian iron and steel industry focused on exports due to the collapse of steel demand in Italy and in the euro zone. Indeed, in the first 10 months last year both flat and long steel exports (7.124 million mt and 3.326 million mt) almost equalled the figures recorded in the whole of 2011 (respectively 7.376 million mt for flat and 3.488 million mt for long products). In 2011, ex-Italy shipments of flat and long steel products were up by 13-14 percent compared to the previous year.
(*) Seamless pipes, welded pipes, forged bars, cold drawn sections and bars, drawn wire, cold rolled strips, welded sections, drawn wire.
(**) Flanges, pipe fittings, mining sections, diamond plates, pig iron powder
Units of measurement are thousand metric tons
