In January-November 2024, Ukraine increased imports of aluminum and aluminum products by 22.29% to $409.063 million, while exports increased by 30% to $115.982 million.
In November, aluminum imports amounted to $32.794 million, while exports amounted to $10.423 million.
In addition, in 2023, Ukraine increased imports of aluminum and aluminum products by 7.7% to $366.463 million.
In 2023, exports of aluminum and aluminum products increased by 0.7% compared to 2022, to $97.616 million.
Aluminum is widely used as a structural material. The main advantages of aluminum are its lightness, stamping resistance, corrosion resistance, high thermal conductivity, and non-toxicity of its compounds. In particular, these properties have made aluminum extremely popular in the production of cookware, aluminum foil in the food industry, and packaging. The first three properties have made aluminum the main raw material in the aviation and aerospace industries (recently it has been replaced by composite materials, primarily carbon fiber). After the construction and production of packaging, such as aluminum cans and foil, the energy sector is the largest consumer of the metal.
Imports of passenger cars, including cargo and passenger vans and racing cars (UKT FEA code 8703), to Ukraine in monetary terms in January-November this year increased by 8.4% compared to the same period in 2023, to EUR 3.995 billion.
According to customs statistics released by the State Customs Service of Ukraine on Monday, the top three countries from which cars were imported the most were the United States, Germany and Japan, while car imports from the United States increased by 9.5% to EUR734.69 million, and their share in the structure of car imports was 18.39% compared to 18.2% a year earlier.
Cars from Germany, whose share in the import structure decreased by 0.6 percentage points to 15.24%, were imported for EUR608.9 million (4.3% more), and the share of cars from Japan decreased to 11.5% from 14.4% a year earlier – they were imported for EUR462.83 million (almost 13% less).
Imports of passenger cars from other countries amounted to almost EUR2.19 billion (56.48% share), while a year earlier it was EUR1.9 billion (51.55%).
According to the statistics, in November, imports of passenger vehicles to Ukraine amounted to EUR 360.7 million, down 1.6% year-on-year.
According to the State Customs Service, in January-November, Ukraine exported such vehicles for EUR9.5 million, while a year earlier it was EUR27.3 million, with the largest exports going to Canada (EUR1.8 million), Germany (EUR1.54 million) and the US (EUR1.53 million), while last year it was to Georgia, the UAE and Germany.
In January-November of this year, Ukrainian enterprises reduced their consumption of rolled metal products by 7.95% year-on-year to 2 million 995.6 thousand tons.
According to a press release issued by Ukrmetallurgprom on Wednesday, 1 million 135.6 thousand tons, or 37.91% of the domestic rolled steel market, were imported during this period.
According to Ukrmetallurgprom, in January-November 2024, steel companies produced 5.741 million tons of rolled metal products (118% compared to the same period in 2023), of which, according to the State Customs Service of Ukraine, about 3.881 million tons, or 67.6%, were exported. In January-November 2023, the share of exports amounted to 54.4% (2.664 million tons with a total production of 4.864 million tons of rolled steel).
The share of semi-finished products in export deliveries in January-October 2024 amounted to 46.25%, which is significantly higher than in January-November 2023 (41.79%). The share of flat products in export deliveries for 11 months of 2024 is almost at the level of January-November 2023 (39.04% and 38.46%, respectively). The share of long products is significantly lower than in January-October 2023 (14.71% in 2024 vs. 19.74% in 2023).
“In 11 months of 2024, the domestic market capacity amounted to 3254.2 thousand tons, of which 1034.2 thousand tons, or 31.78%, were imported. Thus, for 11 months of 2024, there was a decrease in the domestic market capacity by 7.95% compared to 11 months of 2023, while the share of the import component increased by 6.13%,” the press release states.
The structure of imports in 11 months of 2024 is still characterized by a significant dominance of flat products over long products (78.87% and 19.52%, respectively); in January-November 2023, the dominance of flat products over long products was also significant (75.23% and 23.98%, respectively).
According to the State Customs Service, the main export markets for Ukrainian rolled steel products in January-November 2024 were the European Union (70.3%), Africa (10.5%) and the rest of Europe (8.1%).
Other European countries ranked first among steel importers in 11 months of 2024 (50.6%), followed by the EU-27 (28.0%) and Asia (20.0%).
As reported, Ukraine’s rolled steel market increased 2.19 times in 2023 compared to 2022, to 3 million 505.6 thousand tons. The company imported 1 million 118.6 thousand tons, or 31.91% of the domestic market for these products.
Imports of tractors to Ukraine in January-November this year amounted to $722.53 million, which is almost 7% less than in the same period in 2023, according to statistics from the State Customs Service.
According to the statistics released by the agency, tractors were mainly imported from Germany (15.2% of total imports of this equipment, or $110 million), China (13.9%, or $100 million) and the United States (13.5%, or $97.3 million), while a year earlier it was Germany (17%), Poland (almost 16%) and the Netherlands (13%).
At the same time, in November, Ukraine imported tractors worth $61.9 million, up 33.6% compared to the same month last year.
According to the statistics, in January-November, tractors worth almost $5 million were exported, compared to $5.47 a year earlier, mainly to Moldova (25.8%), Kazakhstan (14.8%) and the Czech Republic (11.8%).
In January-November this year, Ukraine increased imports of aluminum ore and concentrate (bauxite) in physical terms by 82.3% compared to the same period last year, up to 30,140 thousand tons.
According to statistics released by the State Customs Service (SCS) on Monday, bauxite imports in monetary terms increased by 78.2% to $3.672 million during this period.
The imports came mainly from Turkey (76.74% of supplies in monetary terms), China (21.06%) and Spain (2.12%).
Ukraine did not re-export bauxite in the period under review, as well as in January-November 2023.
As reported, in 2022, Ukraine reduced imports of aluminum ore and concentrate (bauxite) in physical terms by 81.5% compared to the previous year – to 945.396 thousand tons. Imports of bauxite in monetary terms decreased by 79.6% to $48.166 million. Imports were mainly from Guinea (58.90% of supplies in monetary terms), Brazil (27.19%) and Ghana (7.48%).
In 2023, Ukraine imported 19,830 thousand tons of bauxite worth $2.360 million.
Bauxite is an aluminum ore used as a raw material to produce alumina, which is used to make aluminum. They are also used as fluxes in ferrous metallurgy.
Mykolaiv Alumina Plant (MAP) imports bauxite to Ukraine.
Imports of refrigerators, freezers and heat pumps to Ukraine in January-November this year increased by 21.3% in monetary terms compared to the same period in 2023, to $251.59 million, according to statistics from the State Customs Service.
According to the agency’s statistics, refrigeration and freezing equipment was imported mainly from China (32.3% of imports, or $81.3 million), Poland (23.7%, or $59.7 million) and Turkey (12.3%, or $30.8 million), while a year earlier, most of such equipment was imported from Poland (28%), followed by China (21%) and Turkey (15.2%).
At the same time, in November, imports of refrigeration and freezing equipment decreased by 5% to $17.3 million compared to November 2023.
Meanwhile, in January-November, Ukraine increased exports of such equipment by 56.7% to $68.05 million, in particular, exports to Poland increased 6.6 times to $13.52 million (almost 20% of exports of this equipment), to Kazakhstan – by 21.2% to $13.37 (19.7%), to Uzbekistan more than tripled to $7.53 million (11%).
For a long time, Ukraine’s largest producer of household refrigerators and freezers was the Nord plant in Donetsk, which was forced to shut down in 2016 due to the war and moved its refrigerator production to China.
On the distribution company’s website, the last message about the sale of equipment in the online store is dated June 2020.
In addition, KTD Group, which produces household appliances in Ukraine under the Saturn, ST, and Laretti brands, announced in February 2019 that it would launch a trial production of household refrigerators at a new plant in Cherkasy, but nothing has been known about this project since then.
In addition, the UBC Group, a commercial and industrial holding company with plants in Kharkiv and Vinnytsia, operates in the B2B refrigeration segment in Ukraine.
