Iron And Steel Imports Worldwide

Countries that are naturally rich in iron mineral reserves, or do not produce excessive amounts of products prepared using iron and steel, may not have much need for iron or steel imports. In fact, there are many countries around the world that spend very little of their relative GDP on iron and steel imports. Their respective reasons for refraining from importing these products in large quantities are each different to some degree, but typically either revolve around self-sufficiency-oriented policies or a lessened demand for their iron and steel products locally and internationally. The latter is especially true of many countries with very small populations and land areas. Statistics denoting the countries that imported the smallest amounts of iron and steel in 2014 have recently been released, and the information on such spending has been expressed in value in US dollars for comparisons’ sake. Below, we have taken a look into the countries making the list of those importing the smallest total values of iron and steel.

Absolute Lowest Importers of Iron and Steel

Coming in the first position on this list is the Solomon Islands. For the record, iron and steel products do happen to be export commodities of the Solomon Islands, together with yachts, unprocessed sugar cane, and processed sugar cane for table use (pure sucrose). Considering that it is self-sufficient in iron and steel production, the country did not have to import much of this commodity in 2014. For this reason, its iron and steel imports amount to a total worth merely $296,471 USD for the year. In the second position on our list of countries with the smallest import values of iron and steel is Kiribati, with totals import worth $350,542 USD in the year. Kiribati doesn’t have much of a demand for iron and steel due to its small size and subsequently limited domestic needs. Apart from that, it doesn’t export many products prepared using these materials, which is why their utilization therein is quite minimal. While the island nation didn’t need to import much in the way of iron and steel, the low level of such imports that it does bring in are typically used for the preparation of iron and steel flanges, threaded elbows, bends, tubular pipe fittings, and cast tube.

Other Minimal Importers of Iron and Steel

Palau made it to number three on the list, with its total iron and steel imports valued at a worth of $1,838,525 USD. The country is not believed to have an excessive need for iron, and appears to be somewhat self-sufficient in that sector, and Palau even exports a significant amount of iron and steel based products relative to its small GDP and physical size.

Other countries that have made it onto this list include names like Sao Tome and Principe, Tonga and the Central African Republic. Each of these countries had iron and steel imports valued to be worth less than $4,000,000 in 2014. With small populations and small geographical areas to develop industry within, it is unlikely that many of the countries making this list will become significant iron and steel importers any time soon.