2018 Reports

Australia: Downstream linkages

Maennling, Nicolas Wolfram; Toledano, Perrine

The increasingly globalized steel market, global overcapacity, a high Australian dollar, and the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis all contributed to the post-protection demise of the steel industry in Australia. Ultimately, despite the abundance of key inputs for steel production and a highly skilled work force, Australia has not managed to develop its steel production capacity much beyond what is needed to service domestic demand. However, the country provides an interesting counterfactual for resource-rich countries given that it has developed without following the downstream beneficiation pathway.