“The steel market becomes more and more global”

Improving the global exchange of knowledge and working on effective and resilient global trade relations. These were the key drivers of the Steel Net Forum & International Steel Trade Day in Hamburg, organized by the international steel network “Eurometal”. Some major topics of the event included the current tariff policy of the US, responding safeguard measures in Europe and worldwide, as well as logistic constraints all over the world.

“Hamburg and its port are a significant symbol for trade and for running a business with people from all over the world”, said Dr. Jens Lauber, president of “Eurometal”, at the inauguration of the event. Many participants had visited the port of Hamburg at an evening event the day before. Also, the venue of the forum was directly situated next to the port of Hamburg.

“The port of Hamburg is also a symbol for long-standing trade relationships”, said Dr. Lauber and remembered that the former Hanseatic trading group (Hanse) could maintain strong trading relationships over a period of centuries.

“Eurometal stands for acting as a group and a strong voice in the European steel market”, said Dr. Lauber. As Eurometal consists of very different interest groups, such as steel distributors, steel service centers and steel traders, Dr. Lauber noted that exchange between these groups becomes more and more effective, as the international conditions for trade become more complex.

“The steel market becomes more and more global”, said Dr. Lauber, stressing that supply chains around the world should become a major focus of interest of the whole steel industry.  

“Last year we had a similar meeting in Belgium with 55 participants, now we see already more than 90 people attending the event in Hamburg”, Dr. Lauber commented on the growing interest for current issues of the steel market.

He stressed that the forum was especially proud to welcome a large range of experts from many different countries and across the whole distribution of the global supply chain: logistics, training, service centers, distributors and steel mills.

“This shows that we selected the right place that we invited the right people and that we have an interesting topic to talk about”, said Dr. Lauber. According to him, fortunately or not, there are a lot of global developments, which drive the industry to increase their efforts to exchange and discuss. After all,  according to Dr. Lauber, this makes events like the Steel Net Forum & International Steel Trade Day all the more necessary.

photo: Dagmar Dieterle