Alacero, the Latin American Steel Association, has reported that the Latin American steel imports in 2014 rose 8.2 percent while production fell two percent versus the same time period in 2013. Additional figures described that the steel market didn’t grow during the 2014 time period. The market was affected by global and regional economic deceleration.
Latin America imported 22.9 million tons of finished steel in 2014, 8.2 percent above the amount recorded for 2013, which was 21.2 million tons. Currently, imports account for 33 percent of the regional consumption. In 2014, several Latin American countries displayed finished steel trade deficit. The most significant was registered in Mexico (5.1 million tons); followed by Colombia (2.4 million tons), Peru (1.9 million tons) and Chile (1.5 million tons).
In 2014, Latin America produced 65.6 million tons of crude steel, in line with 2013. Brazil represented 52 percent of the regional output (33.9 million tons), even when it described a slight drop of 1 percent y-o-y. In 2014, the strongest crude steel production percentage growths were registered in Ecuador (16 percent), Peru (eight percent), Argentina (six percent) and Mexico (four percent). On the other hand, Venezuela and Chile described declines of 31 percent and 15 percent, respectively.