Egypt steel makers lose share to imports: Ezz Steel

By Maha El Dahan

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian steel producers have lost market share to imports so far in 2009 because they are unable to keep up with surging demand, Egypt's largest producer Ezz Steel said on Monday.

George Matta, Ezz Steel marketing director, also said at a conference in Cairo that demand for rebars in the second half of 2009 was forecast at about 3.3 million tonnes, slowing from an estimated 3.9 million in the first half.

"Local producers lost 35 percent of the market share in Egypt to imports in 2009," Matta said.

"This loss was unavoidable as production capacity couldn't keep up with the surge in demand," he said, without saying what market share Egyptian makers now controlled.

Ezz Steel said last month that the Egyptian market had proved resilient to the global financial crisis and economic downturn. Egypt's economic expansion has slowed but growth is still expected to stay around 4 percent in 2008/9.

"The market is doing extremely well right now and we expect to really take advantage of opportunities available," Matta said, adding Ezz Steel expected to produce at capacity of 5.3 million tonnes a year in 2009, around the same level as 2008.

Matta forecast that Egypt would import 3 million tonnes of steel products in 2009, 2.5 million of which would be steel rebars and 500,000 tonnes flat steel.

Egypt had imported about 1.5 million tonnes of rebars from Turkey so far, he said, adding that Turkey was the sole supplier of steel rebar imports.