The President of UNICOIL, Eng. Rayed Al-Ajaji, presented an important seminar entitled “The Negative Import Practices for Galvanized Steel Products and Stained in the Region’s Markets.”

This seminar provided information about the historical establishment of quality control in the company, the production capacities in Saudi Arabia, and the market size. Eng. Rayed Al-Ajaji showed how Saudi industry is suffering from the large amount of prepainted steel being imported, which results in an oversupply of steel sheets. The total production capacity in Saudi Arabia is 380 thousand tons per year, while the domestic market consumes 255 thousand tons per year. Although this represents a production surplus of about 50%, this is not a major problem for the industry. Instead, the real problem lies in excessive importation; for example, during the first 10 months of 2014, about 163 thousand tons of steel was imported, which constitutes more than 70% of the total consumption in the Saudi market, which is already characterized by surplus production.