In January-May this year, Ukrainian enterprises increased exports of ferrous scrap by 32.2% year-on-year to 102,366 thousand tons from 77,452 thousand tons.
According to statistics released by the State Customs Service on Thursday, 14.952 thousand tons were exported in May, 26.153 thousand tons in April, 20.907 thousand tons in March, 23.194 thousand tons in February and 17.160 thousand tons in January.
In monetary terms, scrap metal exports increased by 42.7% to $32.872 million from $23.028 million.
In January-May, scrap metal was exported to Poland (85.33%), Greece (10.61%) and Germany (3.92%).
In the first five months of the year, the country imported 424 tons of scrap metal worth $217 thousand. Imports were carried out from Slovakia (48.61% in monetary terms), Turkey (32.87%) and Poland (9.26%), while in January-May 2023, 344 tons of scrap were imported for $138 thousand.
As reported, in 2023, the scrap collecting enterprise of Ukraine increased the export of scrap metal from the country by 3.4 times compared to the previous year – up to 182,485 thousand tons from 53,557 thousand tons. In monetary terms, exports increased 2.74 times to $52.723 million from $19.271 million.
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. He noted that exporting raw materials directly to customers would cost EUR180 in export duties, and the Ukrainian budget has already lost UAH 350 million.
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 face of the ongoing war. He also 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.
In 2022, Ukraine reduced exports of ferrous scrap by 11.5 times compared to the previous year, to 53,557 thousand tons, and in monetary terms, it decreased by 12.4 times, to $19.271 million.
