TAIPEI: Taiwan’s steel exports for the first half of this year fell by nearly 20 percent as oversupply sent product prices into a tailspin, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
The ministry said that expanded steel production capacity in China, one of the largest steel suppliers in the world, has exacerbated the global supply glut, adding that the impact from the oversupply was more visible in the Asia-Pacific region.
The ministry said that as the global economy showed signs of weakening, demand for steel products has been declining, dragging product prices even lower, which hit exports of Taiwan’s steel exports hard over the past six months.
Ministry statistics showed that from January to June, the value of steel exports fell by 19.4 percent year-on-year to US$4.3 billion.
China, which is the largest buyer of Taiwan’s steel exports, accounted for 13.7 percent of total outbound sales, ahead of the US with 12.8 percent and Japan with 6.7 percent, the data showed.
During the same period, steel exports to China fell by 17.7 percent from a year earlier following the imposition of additional duties on steel product imports in July last year by the Chinese government, the ministry said.
Taiwanese steel exporters have also been affected by the depreciation of the Japanese yen over the past six months, which has resulted in a 24.3 percent decline in exports to Japan from a year earlier, the ministry added. Exports to the US fell by 0.5 percent year-on-year.
Taiwan’s steel imports for the first half of this year totaled US$4.2 billion, down 17.2 percent from a year earlier, the ministry’s data showed.
The ministry said that Japan was the largest steel supplier to Taiwan, accounting for 30.7 percent of total imports, followed by China with 25.4 percent, Russia with 8.1 percent and the US with 7.3 percent.
In the first five months of the year, production value in the local steel sector fell by 9.7 percent from a year earlier to NT$464.1 billion (US$14.61 billion), the ministry said.
Of the many steel product categories, hot rolled steel plate makers suffered the steepest decline in output, which dropped 21.6 percent from a year earlier to NT$99 billion, it added.
The production index for the local steel industry fell by 2.1 percent year-on-year for the first five months of the year to 98.46, with the subindex for the hot rolled plate segment down 7.7 percent from a year earlier, ministry data showed.
