In January-August this year, Ukrainian enterprises increased exports of ferrous scrap by 3.9 times compared to the same period last year, up to 117,464 thousand tons.
According to the statistics released by the State Customs Service (SCS), in monetary terms, exports of scrap metal amounted to $34.127 million in the period under review (up 2.7 times).
At the same time, the export of scrap metal has been growing since March: in January, about 8.28 thousand tons of scrap were 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, in July – 9.567 thousand tons, in August – 15.849 thousand tons.
Scrap metal was exported to Poland (86.20%), Greece (7.91%) and Bulgaria (3.19%).
In the first two months of the year, the country did not import scrap metal; in March-August, it imported 681 tons of scrap worth $261 thousand (49.43% from Slovakia, 21.07% from Poland, 10.73% from Estonia).
Earlier, Ukrmetallurgprom President Oleksandr Kalenkov stated in a column on the Interfax-Ukraine website that scrap metal is exported through the European Union, which has a preferential export duty of EUR3 per ton, and from there the raw materials are redirected to real customers. Exporting raw materials directly to customers would cost EUR180 in export duty, and the Ukrainian budget has already lost UAH 350 million.
According to him, the State Bureau of Investigation has already taken an interest in such export schemes.
The head of Ukrmetallurgprom called for a temporary ban on the export of ferrous scrap to provide steelmakers with strategically important raw materials in the ongoing war.
“If the scrap metal remains in the country, more than 500,000 people will be employed and the country will receive millions in foreign exchange earnings from steel exports. At the same time, the military will also benefit, as steelmakers do a lot to help the military by purchasing equipment and vehicles for them and even producing bulletproof vests. No one benefits from scrap exports. That is why the government should be proactive and temporarily ban exports until the situation stabilizes and ceases to threaten national economic security,” Kalenkov said.
He clarified that a ton of scrap metal processed into steel brings in 10 times more to the budget than the EU export duty, which is about $300 per ton.
As reported, in 2022, Ukraine reduced exports of ferrous scrap by 11.5 times compared to the previous year to 53,557 thousand tons, while in monetary terms it 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 by 12.6 times to 1,824 thousand tons. tons, compared to the previous year – to $19.271 million tons, in monetary terms by 12.9 times – to $3.488 million. Imports of scrap metal in 2022 were mainly from Turkey (78.92% of supplies in monetary terms), the Russian Federation (13.25%) and Cyprus (5.08%); exports – to Turkey (38.97%), Poland (34.25%) and Greece (10.12%).
