TEHRAN: Iran direct net steel exports reached its highest in 10 years as it hit 971,000 tons in 2016 and bested all other countries in the Middle East
and North Africa region, World Steel Association’s latest report announced. The Iranian steel industry has truly come a long way. In 2007, Iran was MENA’s largest importer of steel and its net exports stood at -11.6 million tons. The figure stood at -674,000 tons in 2015.
Save for 2016, Iran has been in negative territory since 2006, although it followed a steadily upward trend. The Islamic Republic has zoomed past big names in the region, including Turkey. Iran’s archrival posted a net export of -1.66 million tons in 2016, showing a negative trend starting a year earlier. This is while Turkey’s steel trade balance was mostly above 5 million tons in the 10-year period.
The net exports of Saudi Arabia and the UAE 2016 stood at -7.1 million tons and -4.08 respectively. Their track record for the decade shows a constant presence in the negative territory.
As for the global record, Iran ranked 12th in direct net exports in 2016, standing between the Netherlands (11th) with 1.88 million tons and Finland (13th) with 871,000 tons. China ranked first with 94.48 million tons, followed by Japan with 34.49 million tons, Kazakhstan with 26.7 million tons, Ukraine with 17.09 million tons, Brazil with 11.53 million tons, South Korea with 7.3 million tons, Belgium and Luxembourg with 5.4 million tons, Taiwan with 4.3 million tons, Austria with 2.98 million tons and Slovakia with 2.14 million tons. Iran was also the world’s 17th largest direct exporter of steel with 5.65 million tons. It was sandwiched between Canada with 5.8 million tons and the Czech Republic with 5.19 million tons. China was the world’s largest with 108 million tons, followed by Japan with 40.5 million tons, South Korea with 30.5 million tons, Germany with 25 million tons, Belgium and Luxembourg with 19.6 million tons, Ukraine with 18.2 million tons, Italy with 17.8 million tons, Turkey with 15.3 million tons, France with 13.9 million tons, Brazil with 13.3 million tons, Taiwan with 12.2 million tons, India with 10.3 million tons, the Netherlands with 10.2 million tons, Spain with 9.3 million tons and the US with 9.2 million tons.
The WSA report presents a cross-section of steel industry statistics. It contains comprehensive statistics from 2006 to 2016 on crude steel production by country and process, steel production by production, steel trade by product, apparent steel use and apparent steel use per capita by country, as well as production and trade of pig iron and direct reduced iron. It also includes data on production, as well as trade of iron ore and scrap. The statistics were collected from members of WSA and various international organizations.
World steel members represent approximately 85% of the world’s steel production, including over 160 steel producers with nine of the 10 largest steel companies, national and regional steel industry associations and steel research institutes.
Iran’s construction sector has long been dormant, as government budget for development projects keeps falling every year.
