Director of state operated Ukrpromvneshexpertiza organization has stated in a meeting that the country may reduce steel output by 27.2% to 27,000,000 tons in 2009 which was 37.1 million tons in 2008. He added that the output may decrease and another 10,000,000 tons due to a slump in exports.
Steel mills of Ukraine are expected to export 19,000,000 tons of steel during 2009. This export volume was 26.8 million tons in 2007. It is expected that approximately 8,000,000 tons of steel shall be sold in Ukraine itself.
Analysts have said that steel output may decline in February 2000 9 x 37.8% settling at 2.17 million tons which would be 9% higher than January 2009. The current output may decline by about 37.5% settling at 1.82 million tons which marks an increase of 10.9% as compared to January 2009.
The steel industry of the country is expected to have closed 2008 at 10% profit margin. In the first of the year, the margins were very high but due to global economy slowdown, they started to decline specially in the fourth quarter of the year. At that time, the loss of the industry is said to have grown as much as UAH 3.5 billion where as loss margin by 15.5 percent.