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Sector Overview
These pages provide UK exporters in the Metals & Minerals (products & processing) sector with information on assistance available from UK Trade & Investment as well as some other sector information and contacts.
The UK steel industry is exceptional in that it can supply into any application in any market in the world ranging from finished and semi-finished products plus downstream products (primary transformations) such as tubes and wire rod. In 2001, the industry employed around 44,000 people (around 22,400 on the primary production side). The main UK steel industry customers were the engineering, construction, automotive and metals goods industries.
The industry exports around half the steel it produces, with around three quarters of exports going to other EU countries. In 2001, the UK was the worlds 16th largest steel producer, and the 5th in Europe, producing 13.5 million tonnes of crude steel and exporting 6.6 million tonnes.
For many years worldwide demand has grown steadily in the non-ferrous metals industries sector. More aluminium is produced each year than any other non-ferrous metal, its main user industries in the UK being transport, construction and packaging. Construction takes up 54% of the market of extrusions, most of this being suitable for export. Of the other major base metals processed, copper accounts for nearly 50% of the sector's total net output, but the UK is also the world's third largest producer of lead.
The UK's metal forming and finishing industries employ around 250,000 people in 7,000 companies, which account for about £8 billion of sales. Whilst some technologies are very well established, others are newly emerging. Increasingly, metal forming companies are producing specialised products or systems aimed at particular markets. In addition to direct exports, many of the component parts produced by the sector are indirectly exported via overseas sales of the end-product - e.g. as vital components in a diverse range of products, from jet engine turbine blades to artificial hips.
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Sector Content
The Metals & Minerals (Products & Processing) sector comprises of the following industry areas:
- basic steels
- Ferrous metals
- Forging
- Foundries
- industrial ceramics
- industrial minerals
- Metal-finishing industry
- Metal recycling
- Metal stockholding
- Non-ferrous
- Other metal-forming industries
- Precious metals
- primary transformations
- narrow strip
- tubes
- wire
- wire rope
- refractories
- sheet metal-working
- special steels
- Surface engineering
- steelwork fabrication
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