The Middle East region has an impact on the world market of steel

According to the «World Steel Association» a strong influence on the world steel market has the Middle East region, despite the fact that it is the total amount of 4.5% of the metal production. The volume of imported products account for 15%, however, 7 years ago, figure exceeded 20%. For this reason, the construction of new steel plants in the Gulf, focused on import substitution, to a large extent reduces the global steel market.

According to the results for the period January-October 2014 steel production in Saudi Arabia increased compared to the same period last year by 15.6%, in Qatar, an increase of 32.6%, which generally amounted to over 1.3 mln. Tons. Steel production in Iran increased by more than 0.8 million. Tons, not far off the growth of production indicators of Algeria, which until 2018 plans to implement some very important projects. This growth is to some extent counterbalanced by reduction smelting in the UAE and Egyptian stagnation due to a sharp jump up the cost of gas and electricity, which is why many companies have shifted to the production of rolled steel in place. However, the restriction of consumption on the part of the Middle East has affected the emergence of the crisis in the Turkish iron and steel industry. According to statistics from the WSA, last month the volume of steel produced in Turkey decreased by 11% compared to October last year, and ten-month period of decline was 0.9%, and November figures, apparently, will further exacerbate the situation.

East Asia is also increasing production capacity — the only exception is Japan, where the October figures were down compared to the same period last year. Growth in India, Taiwan and Korea for autumn amounted to about 4.5−6%, in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam, new steel plants are being built, along with the strong concern is the ever-growing volume of imports of Chinese products.

EU countries also increase the growth — from January to October this year, production grew by 3.2% compared to last year's results, the October rose by 1.7% in 2014 figures. Previously, the European Association «Eurofer» predicted consumption growth of 3%, then at this stage, this figure looks much exaggeration, given the difficult economic situation in the region.