2023-09-26 15:10:46
© Reuters.
SÃO PAULO (Reuters) – The president of the council of Brazil, an institution that represents steel mills located in the country, Jefferson De Paula, criticized this Tuesday what he called a “flood” of imports of Chinese and Russian steel and interest rates in the country.
The executive, also president of ArcelorMittal Brasil, stated during the sector’s congress that “Chinese and Russian companies are flooding the market with steel products at subsidized prices”.
Meanwhile, the idle capacity of the country’s steel mills is around 40%, said the executive.
According to the entity’s most recent data, steel imports by Brazil from January to the end of August grew 49.5% over a year earlier, to 3.18 million tons, with the main origins being China (61%) and Russia .
Aço Brasil’s expectation for sales of the alloy in Brazil is a drop of 6% this year and the forecast for production is a decline of 5%.
“Interest rates are today the main impediment to the growth of this country in a sustainable way”, said De Paula, citing, despite this, that the steel sector plans investments of around 63 billion reais over the next four years.
(By Alberto Alergi Jr.)
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