Maintaining competitive asymmetry - as the cumulative taxes, high taxes, high cost of energy and still overvalued exchange rate - resulted in the first quarter of this year in an increase in steel imports and a significant drop in their exports. Were 877,000 tons of steel products imported in the year, up 3.9% over the same period of 2013. 

Exports in Q1 totaled 2 million tons and $ 1.5 billion, representing a decline of 19.1% in volume and 6.9% in value, compared to the same period last year. Clear indicator that the international situation remains difficult, with surplus production capacity of about 600 million tons of steel, according to the forecast Worldsteel Association, making the competition even fiercer.

Brazilian crude steel production reached 8.3 million tonnes in Q1 2014, up 1.5% over the same period of 2013.'s Highlight was the production of long-rolled, which grew by 7.9% the period, mainly due to the resumption of the building construction industry. If the industrialized construction was more widespread in Brazil, the steel consumption in buildings would be even greater. The production of rolled, meanwhile, fell by 2.4% in the first three months of 2014 were impacted mainly by falling exports, which fell by 27.3%. On domestic sales, the result accumulated in 2014 was 5.5 million tons, up 1.8% compared to the same period last year.

The apparent consumption of steel products (6.3 million tons) was up 2.5% from January to March, especially flat products up 4.6%. It is worth noting, however, that the rise in apparent consumption of flat products in this period was mainly impacted by a 22.9% increase in imports of plans, since sales of these products showed modest growth of 2.3% in the same period.