According to customs data comparison, domestic stainless steel imports totaled 284,200 tons in October 2023, up 22.76% sequentially and down 8.6% year on year. Stainless steel exports to the domestic market totaled 336,500 tons, down 1.9% sequentially and up 13.76% year-on-year. Net exports of stainless steel stood at 52,300 tonnes, down 53.09% sequentially and up 67,500 tonnes year-on-year.
The significant increase in domestic imports of stainless steel is mainly due to an increase in the volume of semi-finished products (mainly blanks) imported from Indonesia. In October, Indonesia's domestic imports of stainless steel totaled 251,000 tons, up 24.01% sequentially and down 7.72% year-on-year. Imports Wide-format cold-rolled products totaled 71,200 tonnes, down 20.8% sequentially and down 53.56% year-on-year. Imports of wide-format hot-rolled steel totaled 0.5 million tons, down 72.53% sequentially and 16.67% year-on-year, while imports of other goods and semi-finished products amounted to 17,480,000 tons (including 127,000 tons of billets and 47,700 tons of slabs), increasing by 85.37% sequentially and 55.1% year-on-year.
