Ukraine to discuss quotas for steel pipe exports

Ukraine has started talks with Russia and EU countries on increasing quotas for exports of large diameter steel pipes, State Secretary of the Ukrainian Ministry for Industrial Policies Viktor Padalko reported to journalists. He pointed out that the Ukrainian pipe industry was oriented to foreign markets mostly, to which it supplied 60 percent of its products. As Padalko stressed, an increase in export quotas will contribute to more balanced activities of this industry.

In 2002, production of Ukrainian steel pipes declined 8.4 percent to 1.46 million tons. One of the reasons for this was Russia's introduction of a quota for exports of large diameter steel pipes, which sharply reduced supplies of this product to the Russian market, Padalko stressed.

The Russian-Ukrainian quota agreement restricted the volume of Ukrainian ferrous metal pipe supplies to Russia to 620,000 tons per year.