Competitive Advantages of the Leading Countries in the Modern World Steelmaking

Abstract

The business activity development in 17 leading countries of modern steelmaking has been studied and identified along with an assessment of the divergent trends in their macroeconomic indicators. It has been shown that within the examined strategic group of these countries, a complex and ambiguous competitive situation has developed in the market economic relations of the metallurgy and banking sectors of the global market. A high market concentration in the steel sector and a noticeable increase in market concentration in the sectors for banking assets and gross domestic product have been noted. A concept has been developed to categorize countries into three groups based on active, stable, and variable average options for conducting business activities. A methodology has been employed to calculate the integral and relative coefficients reflecting the deviation of the maximum values from the arithmetic mean indicators for steelmaking, banking assets, and gross domestic product in these countries during the period from 2009 to 2021. The calculations performed and the results obtained allowed for the identification of competitive advantages and the assessment of potential mutually beneficial cooperation options between industrially developed countries. Additionally, opportunities to enhance the competitiveness of the production and economic activities of specific countries have been identified and refined, significantly enriching the overall understanding of the economic situation in these countries and specifying the prospects for their further development in the global market. It is recommended to use the developed methodology for assessing and forecasting the development of the competitive advantages of industrially developed countries.