The ironworks in Smederevo, which is owned by the Chinese company Hestil, will be able to export 29.4 percent more steel to the EU market after the decision of Brussels to increase quotas, said today the head of the Department of Metallurgical Engineering at the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy in Belgrade Nenad Radovic.
Radović says that the Ironworks, instead of 120,000 tons of steel a year, will be able to export about 150,000 tons.
“This is a significant increase in the possibility of exporting the standard assortment of the Hot Rolled Rolling Mill in Zelezara,” said Radović.
Yesterday, the European Commission adopted a new Decree which redistributed the quota for the import of steel into the EU, which has so far been intended for Russia and Belarus, which increased the quotas for Serbia for the export of certain types of steel.
The export of steel from Serbia to the EU has been limited by quotas for several years, although there is a Free Trade Agreement with the countries of that community.
According to the Decree, the specific quota for category 1 has been increased for Serbia, while residual quotas have been increased for categories 3A, 3B, 7, 12, 13, 16, 19, 21, 24, 25B, 26, 27 and 28.
Radović said that the most important thing is that the specific quota for category 1 has been increased, while for other categories Serbia is in the group with other countries, and it is not clear from that document how much those increases are.
He added that it should be borne in mind that the capacity of the Smederevo Ironworks is around two million tons of steel a year, and that the allowed quotas are many times less than the production possibilities.
He said that according to that Decree, there is a possibility that Metalfer from Sremska Mitrovica will export a certain amount of steel for concrete reinforcement.
Some experts estimated that the increase in quotas was allowed due to the reduction of production in German steelworks due to expensive electricity, N1 reports.
