EU needs steel value chain approach: Ronald de Haan
The EU must protect its entire steel value chain from imported competition that plays by a different set of rules, and should mandate sustainability criteria for procurement supported by digital passport use for steel, says Tata Steel Nederland director markets, pricing & services Ronald de Haan. The alternative is that the value chain will migrate outside the bloc.
Participants at each stage of the EU supply chain must collaborate closely to ensure its integrity. “Because in the end, if … a certain part of the value chain breaks, I think the whole value chain will break, because … the whole value chain will migrate towards a different country,” de Haan said during last week’s EUROMETAL Steel Trade Day in Düsseldorf attended by Kallanish.
Macroeconomic indicators in Europe are relatively positive, with inflation normalising back towards 2%, interest rates coming down, PMIs hovering at 50 or just above, and fixed investment performing satisfactorily. One issue however has been the loss of share in export markets due to competition with subsidised products.
Moreover, a lack of consumer and investor confidence amid US unpredictability and wars, as well as high energy costs, low productivity and delaying bureaucracy are stifling EU industry growth. Companies are “in survival mode” and not investing with long-term perspectives, de Haan said.
EU imports of steel derivatives have accelerated in recent years. China now produces around 27 million cars annually but does not consume this output entirely. “So what do you do if you have empty stamping plans? Well, you often stamp the parts. I mean, some of our, I would say, dear, automotive customers, they actually pick up that opportunity. So there’s a huge amount of parts being imported [into the EU], so demand that we cannot satisfy locally, that will not be serviced to service centres … We see import of empty cans, some imports of air,” de Haan added.
Germany was once a market leader in solar panels, but the majority of production has now migrated to China, which simply ships them in boxes for construction in Europe, he added.
