The European Union (EU) significantly tightened its steel import safeguards, and South Korea’s steel exports to the bloc plunged more than 40% in the first month of implementation. However, analysts note that since the decline began before the new measures took effect, the full extent of the drop cannot be attributed solely to the new restrictions.<\/p>\n
According to data released by the Korea International Trade Association on the 23rd, South Korea’s steel product exports to the EU totaled $188.31 million (approximately 260 billion won) in July, down 41.2% from $320.28 million in the same month last year. This marks the lowest July figure in 13 years, since $166.34 million was recorded in 2013. Export volume also fell 44.8% year-on-year to 180,948 tons.<\/p>\n
The EU is a key market for South Korean steel products, second only to ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations). Starting on the 1st of last month, the EU reduced its tariff-free steel import quota from 33.82 million tons to 18.35 million tons\u2014a cut of approximately 46%\u2014and raised the tariff on out-of-quota volumes from 25% to 50%.<\/p>\n
After negotiations with the EU, South Korea secured a country-specific tariff-free quota of 2.073 million tons for steel products on June 30. This represents a 19.7% reduction from last year’s 2.581 million tons. Compared with other exporting countries such as Ukraine (-58.9%) and India (-30.2%), however, South Korea’s reduction was relatively modest and was viewed as a favorable outcome. South Korean companies can also tap into a shared quota of 1,735,574 tons, which exporting countries compete to secure.<\/p>\n
South Korean steel exports to the EU had already begun declining in April, before the new safeguards took effect. Export volume rose 15% year-on-year in March but turned negative in April with a 17.5% decline, followed by drops of 15.1% and 15.2% in May and June, respectively. Industry sources explain that companies adjusted their EU-bound shipments amid tariff-related uncertainty even before the negotiations concluded, causing export values to fall sharply.<\/p>\n
The pre-implementation uncertainty and customs clearance time lags may have been reflected in export figures ahead of the actual enforcement. However, given other variables such as product-specific demand and local inventory levels, observers note that more data will be needed to accurately assess the precise impact of the new steel measures.<\/p>\n
The South Korean government has set a goal of generating domestic demand exceeding the 510,000-ton quota reduction. It plans to pursue measures to expand domestic consumption, including support for connecting steel demand companies with supply companies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Union (EU) significantly tightened its steel import safeguards, and South Korea’s steel exports to the bloc…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1164730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[39016,2000,299,5187,1699,730,316163,525,1218,316164,657],"class_list":["post-1164729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-asean","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-india","tag-korea-international-trade-association","tag-south-korea","tag-steel","tag-tariff-free-quota","tag-ukraine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117144587286738342","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1164729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1164730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1164729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1164729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1164729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}