Ukrainian enterprises in January-July this year increased exports of ferrous scrap metal 3.5 times compared to the same period last year – up to 101.615 thousand tons.
According to statistics released by the State Customs Service (SCS) on Monday, in monetary terms, scrap metal exports for the period amounted to $29.807 million (an increase of 2.4 times).
At the same time, the growth of scrap metal exports was recorded since March: if in January about 8.28 thousand tons of scrap metal was exported, in February – 16.5 thousand tons, in March – 15.45 thousand tons, in April – about 16.19 thousand tons, in May – 21.003 thousand tons, in June – 14.6 thousand tons, but in July it decreased to 9.567 thousand tons.
Scrap metal exports in January-July-2023 were to Poland (87.70%), Greece (5.80%) and Bulgaria (3.65%).
In the first two months of the year the country did not import scrap metal, in March-July imported 573 tons of scrap for $222 thousand (45.05% from Slovakia, 21.62% from Poland, 12.61% from Estonia).
Earlier, the president of Ukrmetallurgprom, Oleksandr Kalenkov, stated in his column on the Interfax-Ukraine website that scrap metal is exported through the European Union, where there is a preferential export duty of EUR3 per ton, and from there the raw material is redirected to real customers. To export the raw materials to the clients at once would cost EUR180 export duties – and the Ukrainian budget has already lost UAH 350 mln on this.
According to him, the State Bureau of Investigation is already interested in such export schemes.
The head of Ukrmetallurgprom called for a temporary ban on the export of ferrous scrap to provide metal companies with strategically important raw materials amid the ongoing war.
“If scrap metal remains in the country – more than 500 thousand people will have jobs, and the country will have millions of foreign exchange earnings from steel exports. At the same time, the military will also benefit, because metallurgists help the fighters a lot, buying equipment and cars for them, and even producing body armor. No one will benefit from the export of scrap metal. Therefore, the authorities should act proactively and temporarily ban exports until the situation stabilizes and ceases to threaten national economic security,” said Kalenkov.
He specified that a ton of scrap metal processed into steel gives 10 times more to the budget than the export duty to the EU – about $300 per ton.
As reported, Ukraine in 2022 reduced exports of ferrous scrap in 11.5 times compared to the previous year – to 53.557 thousand tons, in money terms decreased by 12.4 times – to $19.271 million. At the same time, last year the country reduced imports of scrap metal in physical terms in 12.6 times – to 1.824 thousand. Imports of scrap metal in 2022 were mainly from Turkey (78.92% of supplies in monetary terms), Russia (13.25%) and Cyprus (5.08%); exports – to Turkey (38.97%), Poland (34.25%) and Greece (10.12%).
