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UAE, Saudi steel imports to fall this year

Steel imports to Saudi Arabia and the UAE are expected to drop dramatically this year as the two Arab countries' local industries come closer to meeting demand, traders said on Sunday.

  • Reuters
  • Published: 23:02 July 12, 2009
  • Gulf News

Dubai: Steel imports to Saudi Arabia and the UAE are expected to drop dramatically this year as the two Arab countries' local industries come closer to meeting demand, traders said on Sunday.

A decline in demand for steel as a construction boom in the Gulf came to a halt was also expected to hit imports of the metal as the global financial crisis continued to weigh on the property sector, said the traders.

"In a few years Saudi Arabia will not have to import any steel," said Khalid Sulaiman, an undersecretary at Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Last year, the kingdom imported just under one million tonnes of steel while demand for steel is expected to drop to 5.1 million tonnes from 7.2 million in 2008, traders said.

There are no official bodies in the Gulf region that publish monthly statistics on steel supply and demand levels, and the majority of data is collected from traders in the sector.

In the UAE, steel imports in June stood at 100,000 tonnes, or a quarter of their level in the corresponding period in 2008, steel traders in the Gulf region said.

"This was the plan all along, to become self sufficient and this is a good time to do this because this year demand is about 30 per cent lower than last year due to the economic crisis," said a UAE steel trader.

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