Bangladesh’s steel export, mainly semi-finished casting products, leaped 82.91 per cent year-on-year during the July-January period of the ongoing fiscal, interestingly coinciding with the ongoing pandemic-induced economic slowdown.
Of the export, $10 million worth of goods went to China.
Bangladesh’s steel mills primarily import scrap metal to produce the intermediate casting products which need further processing to be turned into finished goods.
The industry deals with ferrous waste and scrap, re-melted ingots and products made from such metal of all shapes and sizes such as angles, rods, plates and pipes.
The export destinations are mainly the United Arab Emirates, India, Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, Pakistan and Myanmar.
The leading steel makers tried to bring in cash instead of making a profit by selling at less than the production cost as the situation was not favourable during that time, he said.
According to him, such strategies in steel export are good for building images but not commercially viable.
Tapan Sengupta, deputy managing director of Bangladesh Steel Re-Rolling Mills, said Bangladesh’s steel mills export by-products which they themselves cannot make use of including air pollution control dust and parts of scrapped ships such as propellers.
He said the ferrous waste and scrap were exported to India, China, Taiwan etc.
As for finished products, he said Bangladesh had attained quality of international standard but not export volumes as per expectations. Though some were exported to north east India, the amount is very insignificant, he said.
Shahriar Jahan Rahat, deputy managing director of Kabir Steel Re-Rolling Mills Group, said there was no scope of exporting finished steel as the millers were capable of only catering to local demand.
He said the sector was dependent on importing the raw materials.
Rahat said Bangladesh’s annual consumption had risen by 15 per cent to 20 per cent between 2017 and 2019 whereas earlier it was increasing by some 10 per cent.
He believes the demand would persist for a long time in Bangladesh.
Rod consumption reached about 6 million tonnes in 2019 while the sector has an installed annual production capacity of about 110 million tonnes.
There are about 40 active manufacturers with a combined capacity to produce nine million tonnes of steel a year. Of them, Abul Khair Steel, GPH Steel, BSRM and KSRM meet more than half of the annual demand of eight million tonnes.
