Market evolution: Brass scrap (CN 74040091) — 2015–2025

Introduction

This report examines the EU's external trade in brass scrap (CN 74040091) over the period 2015–2025. Brass scrap is a key secondary raw material for the copper-zinc alloy industry, feeding back into foundries and semi-manufacturers across Europe. Over the decade, the EU's trade profile in this commodity underwent a fundamental transformation: while traded volumes stagnated or declined, surging unit prices propelled trade values to record levels. At the same time, the EU shifted decisively from a net-importing to a net-exporting position, export destination markets diversified away from a heavy China dependence, and intra-EU export leadership consolidated in Germany and Italy. The general overview provides the full backdrop for the dynamics discussed below.

Rising Prices Mask Falling Volumes: A Value-Driven Trade Expansion

The most striking feature of EU brass scrap trade over 2015–2025 is the divergence between volume trends and value trends. Export volumes fell by 9.0%, from 296,830 tonnes in 2015 to 270,258 tonnes in 2025, yet export value rose by 61.8%, from €870 million to €1,407 million. Import volumes contracted even more sharply, by 33.4%, from 100,327 tonnes to 66,846 tonnes, while import value still managed a 13.4% increase. This pattern is explained entirely by the surge in unit prices, which rose roughly 70–78% over the period.

Export values nearly doubled while tonnages declined

The export unit price reached its highest point in 2025 at €5,207/tonne, up from a trough of €2,625/tonne at the start of the series. This price trajectory broadly tracks the recovery of global copper and copper-alloy prices from the commodity downturn of 2015–2016, followed by the post-pandemic supply squeeze and energy-driven cost inflation of 2021–2022.

Import volumes fell by a third, with prices absorbing the gap

Import volumes fell to a minimum of 66,118 tonnes during the period, while the import price rose from €3,134/t to €5,335/t — almost perfectly offsetting the volume loss in value terms. The EU's reduced appetite for imported brass scrap likely reflects both tighter global supply and increasing domestic collection and processing capacity.

The trade surplus widened to over €1 billion

The EU's trade surplus in brass scrap nearly doubled, reaching €1.05 billion in 2025. This reflects both the structural decline in imports and the sustained scale of outward flows to Asian and other third-country markets. In other words, the EU generates more brass scrap than its domestic industry can absorb, and the surplus has grown even as prices have risen.

A Destinational Shift: Export Diversification Away from China Toward South and Southeast Asia

Over the decade, the geographic structure of EU brass scrap exports underwent a significant rebalancing. China remained the single largest destination throughout, but its relative dominance eroded as India, Thailand, Malaysia, Türkiye, and Hong Kong grew in importance. The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) for export concentration by value fell from 6,721 in 2015 to 3,941 in 2025 (−41.4%), confirming a substantial diversification of export destinations.

China remains dominant but its share eroded

Source: top partners by value

China's value share grew in absolute terms but barely outpaced overall export growth, while India's share tripled in absolute value. The most dramatic expansions were recorded for Thailand (+570.8%), Malaysia (from virtually zero to €22.4 million), and Türkiye (+434.3%). These shifts reflect the broader relocation of copper-alloy smelting and semi-manufacturing capacity toward South and Southeast Asia, as well as China's periodic import restrictions on certain categories of scrap metals.

The volatility profile of new Asian markets is notably higher

The volatility analysis reveals that the newer Asian export destinations carry substantially higher coefficient-of-variation scores than traditional partners:

The high volatility of flows to Hong Kong (CV 1.14) and Thailand (CV 1.11) indicates that these are opportunistic or rapidly evolving markets, whereas China (CV 0.32) and India (CV 0.29) have matured into relatively stable, high-volume outlets. This suggests that EU exporters are actively testing new markets but have not yet fully consolidated these relationships.

Import sources remained stable, with one major exception

On the import side, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States consistently ranked as the EU's top three extra-EU suppliers throughout the period:

Source: top partners by value

The most notable change is the complete collapse of imports from Belarus, which fell from €30.3 million to essentially zero (a CV of 1.78 — by far the highest volatility of any import partner). This is consistent with EU sanctions imposed on Belarus from 2022 onward. The detected price shock involving Norwegian imports in 2020 (a −20.6% price shift with an abnormality score of 83.2) likely reflects the dampening effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on industrial demand and scrap prices in that year.

The EU's Structural Shift: From Net Import Reliance to Dominant Export Position

Perhaps the most consequential development over the period is the EU's transition from a position of moderate net-import reliance to one of strong net-export surplus. The net import reliance ratio shifted from +44.6% in 2015 to −31.0% in 2025 — a swing of nearly 170 percentage points.

Domestic production grew modestly while exports surged past it

EU production of secondary copper raw materials (Prodcom 38.32.23.00) edged up from 475,200 tonnes (€1.63 billion) to 510,000 tonnes (€2.10 billion) — a volume increase of only 7.3%. Yet exports of brass scrap alone reached 270,258 tonnes in 2025, representing more than half of domestic production volume. This implies that a significant share of the EU's collected brass scrap is channelled to third-country smelters rather than being consumed domestically.

EU member-state export leadership consolidated in Germany and Italy

The reshuffling of intra-EU export shares over the decade is striking:

Source: top reporters by value

Germany nearly doubled its export value and became the EU's undisputed leader, while Italy's exports grew nearly fivefold, catapulting it from a minor role to the second-largest EU exporter. The Netherlands, which was the leading EU exporter by value in 2015 (€248 million), saw its exports collapse by 81.2% to just €47 million — suggesting a loss of intermediary/trading function or a redirection of scrap flows. Portugal emerged as a significant player, growing from €10.5 million to €67.1 million.

On the import side, Germany remained the overwhelmingly dominant EU importer throughout (€157 million in 2015, €154 million in 2025), absorbing nearly half of all extra-EU brass scrap imports. Spain's imports grew from €3.3 million to €23.9 million (+632.6%), indicating the emergence of new processing capacity on the Iberian Peninsula.

Export propensity rose, confirming the EU's orientation toward external markets

The export propensity stood at 144.0% in 2015 and rose to 150.6% in 2025, meaning that the EU exports well over one euro of brass scrap abroad for every euro it produces domestically (this is possible because the scrap sector also processes material that enters the economy through collection, demolition, and manufacturing offcuts). The trade intensity index similarly rose from 113.6% to 122.3%, underlining the increasingly outward orientation of the EU's brass scrap market.

Conclusion

Over 2015–2025, the EU's brass scrap trade was defined by three converging dynamics. First, surging prices (+70–78% on a per-tonne basis) more than compensated for declining traded volumes, pushing total export value past €1.4 billion and the trade surplus past €1 billion. Second, export markets diversified significantly away from a heavy dependence on China, with India, Thailand, Malaysia, and Türkiye absorbing rapidly growing shares — though these newer markets remain considerably more volatile. Third, the EU structurally shifted from net-import reliance to a net-export surplus, driven by steady domestic production growth and a decisive expansion of outward flows, with Germany and Italy emerging as the dominant EU exporters and the Netherlands largely receding from its former intermediary role.

Looking forward, the combination of tightening global scrap supply, rising Asian demand for secondary copper raw materials, and the EU's circular-economy policy ambitions suggests that brass scrap will remain a strategically significant traded commodity. The key risks lie in the volatility of emerging destination markets, the potential for further geopolitical disruptions to established supply chains (as illustrated by the Belarus collapse), and the growing competition between domestic EU recyclers and export buyers for available scrap volumes.