Now, still speaking about china, if we imagine what happened in China some quarters ago, a year ago, nowadays, if you look at the industrial PMI of China, all of the indices in industry are growing. We have a recovery of industry in China. They’re privileging the automotive and industrial sectors. When it comes to civil construction, which is fundamental, the Politburo is working with a policy that shows which are the restrictions for housing, for new developments. Prices in China and this is good news, in this earthquake that we’re living in Brazil, prices in China have been recovered by $20, $30. BQ is $535, $545. It was lower than that, almost at the level of $400. Another interesting point. Well, the emphasis of China has never changed its employability, and they’ll do everything for it.
We base ourselves on the average of the first quarter of exports from China. It stands at 650 — 711,000 tons of flat steel in the first quarter. What does this mean? The imports in Brazil of 711,000 tons, mostly coming from China. If you annualize this, it’s nothing. We’re at a level of 3 million and an import penetration of ’22, ’23. Nothing has happened. We have to be more rigorous in terms of what we’re doing in the United States. Well, things are somewhat hyperbolic. They’re at a different moment from us as a country. The demand did have problems in some sectors, theoretically impacted by high interest rates. They slowed down in construction. But we do have sectors that seem to be the exception. The automotive sector is doing very well.
Another important thing that is happening in the USA, purchases are contained. Investors want to know what is the bottom of the well in terms of price. We’re coming to a situation of stabilization. In January, it was $1,200 per ton. We’re now down to $895, $910. We shouldn’t have significant problems in price in the United States. At the U.S.A. plants, and this is interesting, I looked at the EBITDA. If you look at the operational difference, margins are doing very well. Thank you at 20%. The sector is profitable. It is being privileged by the government. There is national safety. The goal is full employability. There’s Biden, the storing and everything to work out. As a pillar, the goal is the growth of the country. Now in Europe, it has been stable for some time.
There was a discrete drop. The commercial defense measures were quite positive now to send Q2, Portugal iPay and tieing of €53 and a sanction of €25, how to compete by employing people in Europe. You begin to question if this is correct, the world is closing down, and we are completely different from other countries. In the case of Brazil, what is happening? In the first quarter, the demand was practically stable vis-a-vis the fourth quarter. We saw an official figure of €3.50 billion annualized, it would be €14 million, BRL 14.5 million, which was what we had last year. Now there has been a drop, I believe, in some exports. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen with the prod that CSN has where they have enormous capacity in China, they are coded products.
Now in the Brazilian domestic market, the assembly plants are facing a very positive moment. The second quarter, they forecast a growth that will be quite aggressive of 13%, sales somewhat higher as they have good inventory in sectors of distribution, 3%. These sectors linked to consumption, the white line and packaging still very timid because consumers are holding back, and we’re holding back in the market, but I do not believe that the Brazilian market will close with figures lower than 2023. The CSN projection is to have a growth, highly leveraged by civil construction. In the case of civil construction, we still have a carryover of launches of developments. We have launches in infrastructure by private initiative. We also have public works, of course, but they’re not very significant.
They’re more sporadic. And the confidence, interest of civil construction is the highest compared to other chains with this scenario to see what we can do. The cast iron ore of 115, 120 coal to 47, the real dollar since the last call, 4.8 to 5 and the BQ premium that I mentioned of €535, €545 million compared to the nationalized import is 12% to 15%. So this premium is a limit basically to work with price corrections. But at some point in time, in the second quarter, perhaps in the third quarter because of these changes, we will have to make price corrections to make our margins somewhat more positive. The EBITDA margin and what we deliver in a per tonne that have had a great drop vis-a-vis the last two years. This is a scenario that we face in the Brazilian market.
The great challenge for CSN. And I have a limitation. I have to fight against the imported products. We have to fight with the weapons we have in-house in the products that CSN are losing market 400,000, 350,000 a year, tin-plates have dropped to half because of imports. Besides everything I said about galvanized material. We do have problems with thin plates and this was a process calculated anti-dumping with the local verification and nothing has been done. There is no protection whatsoever and CSN’s request has been postponed. So this is a scenario we face. We’re going to continue producing volumes, working as Benjamin says at full steam, selling less for more, acting in different segments of industry, and we’re ready to fight. We have no other way out but defend what we are producing.
This is a scenario for Brazil.
Rafael Barcellos: Thank you very much. Very clear. Thank you very much.
Operator: Our next question comes from Ricardo Monegaglia from Safra. Your microphone has been unmuted.
Ricardo Monegaglia: Well, good afternoon. I have two questions. The first, if you could share with us more details about which are the most obvious points to consolidate the cement industry in Brazil. And as part of these questions, if you could describe, which is the process of analysis for investment at CSN, return on the cost of capital of prior analysis, the minimum spread and how that changes when we think about international company? That is the first question. The second question refers to the steel mill. The next two months will have a pressure of imports. But if we could risk things and think of a more future outcome. If we can think about a margin recovery in your operation in Brazil and which are the next main deliveries in the equipment refurbishment. Thank you for taking my questions.
Edvaldo Rabelo: Hello, Ricardo. This is Edvaldo, good afternoon. I will answer the first question recording how to unleash value in cement. We have shown, as Benjamin said, the evolution of cement that explains how the industry operates. There is a forecast of an increase of 2% in the market this year. We had a first quarter with the seasonality normal for the period, but April already shows a reaction towards a more positive volume. We’re implementing all of the synergies that we can. And of course, they came about with the acquisition of Lafarge Holcim. We’re integralizing all of the synergies in our results. We’re going to continue to reduce costs. We had a reduction of almost 20%. This quarter vis-a-vis the same quarter last year, which is very positive.
