Germany is by far the biggest customer for Dutch-made steel, buying up about 30% of total domestic production in 2017, the statistics office CBS said on Thursday.

Belgium is second with 12% of production, followed by France at 9%, Britain at 8% and the US at 6%. Dutch steel exports to the US were worth €570m in 2017, the CBS said.

Total steel exports from the Netherlands hit €9bn last year, but part of this is earned from the re-export of steel made elsewhere.

Nearly half the steel exported to Germany consists of steel imported from other countries, further processed in the Netherlands and re-exported. But almost all the steel sent on to the US is Dutch made, putting it in third place in exports of Dutch-made steel.

Steel exports have been stable for years at about 11 billion kg. But the price of steel has varied.

China

China is the world’s largest steel producer at 832 billion kg in 2017, of which 108 billion kg is exported. Japan, India, the US, Russia, South Korea are the next largest producers. The Netherlands is in 24th place in terms of production, but 14th in terms of global steel exports.

Steel is produced in IJmuiden on the North Sea coast. The plant started out as Hoogovens, then was known as Corus after the ill-fated merger with British Steel and is now Tata Steel Europe.

India-based Tata and Germany’s ThyssenKrupp are now in advanced merger talks which would create Euope’s second-largest steel maker after ArcelorMittal of Luxembourg.