The basic metals production in the Republic of North Macedonia is comprised of complex technical and technological stems for production, modern equipment, and technologies used by various world-famous producers. This makes the sector significantly important and strategic for the country’s economy.
The country actively exports many products groups – most frequently ferronickel, ferrosilicon, silicomanganese, hot-rolled, cold-rolled and coated products – sheets, rolled wire, pipes, castings and molded products. The greater part of the production (80%) is exported to the US and countries within the European Union, while the rest is exported to South East Europe, Taiwan, and other countries.
This industry is still one of the largest exporting industries in Republic of North Macedonia (the relative share in total country’s export in 2019 is 11%) and still has capacity to extended its export basket. The most dominant exporting products are still ferroalloys, but in the top ten exporting products are no longer tools and articles from base metal. Instead, hot-rolled steel goateed flat-rolled steel, steel pipe and tubes, steel bars are now part of top ten exporting products.
Regarding export destination, metal industry is diversified to several countries (China, Germany, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Greece, Serbia, United Kingdom, and France).
The metal manufacturing sector has a number of capacities for advanced processing of basic metals. These include: different types of machines, tools and their parts; special tool machines – robots; devices that use solid fuels and burners; liquid pumps and spare parts for liquid pumps; steel constructions, bridges and their parts; process non-standard equipment for energy facilities, metallurgy, chemical industry, food industry and other industries; products for the building industry (steel framework networks, aluminum windows and doors, protective doors, wire products); devices for households, hotels and restaurants; telecommunications equipment; medical equipment and aids; energy equipment (different types of transformers, energy cables, solar energy collectors, panels, benches, racks, contactors and relays); starting lead batteries; transport equipment; different types of boilers – galvanized, enameled, made from stainless steel; spare parts for motor and railroad vehicles; machines and filtering devices for purifying liquids and gases, electronics and parts used in the automotive industry; equipment and spare parts for motor and railroad vehicles, other products; buses and additional devices attached to business vehicles.