South Korea: Imports of cold-rolled steel products climb 37%, y-o-y, in CY’21

South Korea’s imports of cold-rolled plated and colour-coated steel sheets increased by 37% year-on-year (y-o-y) in CY’21 compared with CY’20. Imports of cold-rolled steel sheets, hot-dip galvanised steel sheets (GI), colour steel sheets and other plated steel sheets increased in CY’21, according to the Korea Steel Association (KSA).

Break-up of imports

Imports of cold-rolled steel sheets (based on cold-rolled wide steel strips) stood at 218,624 tonnes (t), up 37.4 % in CY’21 compared to last year. China supplied 20,521 t (up 37.8% from the same period last year), while imports from Japan were at 16,827 t (up 43.2 % from the same period last year).

Hot-dip galvanised steel sheet imports were recorded at 968,056 t, out of which 893,294 t were imported from China, surging by 62% compared to last year.

Colour steel sheet imports were recorded at 412,708 t, up 38.3 % from last year, and the proportion from China accounted for 99%.

Imports of other plated steel sheets, mainly from Japan and China, stood at 323,340 t, up 46.6 % from last year.

Meanwhile, imports of electro-galvanised steel sheets and tin-coated steel sheets decreased in CY’21 against CY’20.

Electro-galvanised steel sheet imports stood at 131,605 t, down 28.4 % from the same period of 2020, while tin-coated steel sheet imports were at 37,254 t, down 9.7 % from last year.

Note: This insight has been published in accordance with an article exchange agreement between SteelMint and SteelDaily.