20 August 2025 – According to Chinese customs data, Chinese imports of unwrought aluminium and aluminium products rose significantly in July 2025. Raw aluminium remains in short supply. Loud calls for safeguard successor, but EU steel makers are importing more and more steel slabs from China.
China imports significantly more aluminium in July
According to Chinese customs data, Chinese imports of unwrought aluminium and aluminium products increased by more than 38% year-on-year in July 2025. China is the world’s largest consumer of this important light metal. In total, China imported more than 2.3 million tonnes in the first seven months of 2025.
LME aluminium stocks down by over 50%
The availability of unwrought aluminium has been tight for some time, as can be seen, among other things, from the stocks on the European commodity exchange LME. While aluminium stocks were still at around 1 million tonnes at the beginning of July 2024, they have now fallen by more than 50%. Analysts do not see any significant improvement on the supply side in the coming years, which should continue to support aluminium prices.
EU: More and more steel slab imports from China
While EU steel makers are clamouring for a successor to the safeguard measure on certain steel products that expires in mid-2026, the mills themselves are among the world’s leading importers.
For several years now, more and more steel slabs have been imported from China into the European Union. Comparing 2021 and 2024, the volume has increased by almost 4,000% (Source: EUROSTAT). In total, more than 11% of Chinese steel slab exports are likely to have gone to the EU. In 2025, domestic mills could already be importing more than 1 million tonnes of Chinese slabs, e.g. as semi-finished material for hot rolled coil (HRC) produced in Europe.
Except for fully equipped or integrated hot rolling mills, such as those operated by large domestic steel makers, slabs are of no significant value to other market participants.
EU steel makers actively circumvent their own trade defence measures
Domestic steel makers and their lobby organisations never tire of pointing to Chinese steel exports as the main cause of an alleged steel crisis in Europe. However, while extensive trade defence measures exist for processed steel products such as HRC, these are nowhere to be found for steel slabs, which were not even included in the EU safeguard measures – clear proof of who benefits from these imports: the EU steel makers themselves. In addition to favourable purchase prices and CO2 emissions savings, they are also actively circumventing their own trade defence measures.
Thorsten Gerber, CEO of the Gerber Group, said today: ‘This is so dishonest. And in the end, it is small and medium-sized enterprises that have to bear the damage, as they are being cheated out of their competitiveness by unjustified trade defence measures.’
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