Brazil’s steel distributors association, Inda, has disclosed that its members’ steel sales fell 9.4% year-on-year to 369,900t in May, decreasing by 3.4% compared to April. In the January–May period of this year, steel sales of Brazilian distributors rose by 4.4% on year-on-year basis to 1.9M mt.
Distributors’ steel stocks stood at around 1.1M mt at the end of May, increasing by 5.9% from last year, and up by 4.3% compared to the end of April this year. Meanwhile, Inda’s distributors purchased 413,900mt of steel from steel producers in May, an increase of 5.7% from a year earlier and up 3.1% month-on-month.
Brazilian distributors’ imports (including heavy plates, hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized hot plates, electro-galvanized sheets, pre-painted plates and galvalume) registered a 8.8% drop in May compared to the same month in 2012, following the strong year-on-year increase of 28.9% recorded in the previous month, while they were down 25.2% month on month, amounting to 100,200mt. In the first five months of the year, Brazilian distributors’ steel imports fell by 23.8% compared to the same period of 2012, amounting to 534,400mt.
Inda projected a 5% decline in sales and purchases in June this year.