Nickel made Indonesia the world's fifth-biggest iron and steel exporter
Iron and steel exports (HS chapter 72, ferro-alloys included), US$ billion, eight big exporters, 2010 vs 2024.
- 1. Mexico, not China, now sells America the most goods
- 2. China's ASEAN trade is now almost double its US trade
- 3. Central banks now hold more gold than Treasuries or euros
- 4. China now pays the world mostly in yuan
- 5. Migrants now send home four times all foreign aid
- 6. Tether now holds more US Treasuries than the UAE
- 7. Developing countries' interest bill has nearly tripled since 2010
- 8. America's duty-free parcels grew almost tenfold in nine years
- 9. Poles edge past the Japanese in income per person
- 10. In dollars, Nigeria's economy has more than halved since 2014
- 11. Argentina's monthly inflation fell from 25.5% to 1.9%
- 12. Guyana now produces more per person than America
- 13. Mexico's factories now outproduce Britain's and France's
- 14. Ukraine received four times the aid of any other country
- 15. The UAE sold more goods abroad than France in 2025
- 16. Singapore now draws twice as much foreign investment as China
- 17. The EU now buys more US gas than Russian gas
- 18. Malaysia again sells more to America than to China
- 19. 22 governments now owe more than a year's national output
- 20. Brazil mines 93% of the world's niobium
- 21. More Vietnamese now work in industry than on farms
- 22. Money sent home to Guatemala nearly quadrupled in ten years
- 23. In purchasing power, Russia's economy is now bigger than Japan's
- 24. Indonesia set to use more palm oil than it exports
- 25. Factories now make more of Cambodia's economy than China's
- 26. China now buys more from Brazil than from Germany
- 27. Kazakhstan now sells Russia more than Germany does
- 28. China fell to third among America's suppliers in 2025
- 29. Colombians abroad now send home more than foreigners invest
- 30. 72 countries now pay China more than it lends them
- 31. Pakistan rose to first place in Chinese energy finance
- 32. America overtook China as Taiwan's biggest export market
- 33. Mongolia's coal exports hit a record 90 million tonnes
- 34. Viet Nam's ports now handle more containers than Japan's
- 35. Money sent home now tops half of Tajikistan's economy
- 36. Liberia overtook Panama as the biggest flag by ship capacity
- 37. Pakistan passed India in tech's share of services exports
- 38. Mongolia leapt from 2% to 58% paying utilities by phone
- 39. Smaller currencies' share of world reserves has more than doubled
- 40. Nickel made Indonesia the world's fifth-biggest iron and steel exporter
Indonesia's rank among the world's iron and steel exporters, 2010 to 2024, passing India, Russia and the US.
Share of its US$24.2bn of exports in 2024 that was ferro-nickel and other ferro-alloys; stainless steel added 32%.
Nickel ore exports in 2024, down from US$539m in 2010: Indonesia now sells its nickel as metal, not ore.
the numbers & method
| 2010 (bn) | 2024 (bn) | |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | 38.3 | 26.9 |
| China | 29.6 | 68.9 |
| Germany | 27.2 | 26.3 |
| South Korea | 21.7 | 24.7 |
| United States | 18.8 | 20.1 |
| Russia | 17.2 | 10.6 |
| India | 7.2 | 10.1 |
| Indonesia | 1.2 | 24.2 |
Claim types Estimate · Interpretation
Harvard Growth Lab, Atlas of Economic Complexity, goods exports in current US$, HS 1992. UN Comtrade reporter data cleaned and reconciled by the Growth Lab with mirror flows (Bustos-Yildirim method): every value is an Estimate. Read on the Atlas's own GraphQL API (atlas.hks.harvard.edu/api/graphql; HS2 product-HS92-171 = chapter 72 Iron and steel; Indonesia = country-360), and cross-checked with the progrss vault, which loads the Growth Lab's own file hs92_country_product_year_2.csv (Harvard Dataverse doi:10.7910/DVN/T4CHWJ, v18.0, released 22 Apr 2026). 2010 values are identical in both; 2024 values differ by under 1% (vault file: Indonesia 24.40, Japan 27.01, China 68.93, Germany 26.35, Korea 24.81, US 20.17, Russia 10.55, India 9.93; ranks of the eight charted countries unchanged). Chart values (API), US$ bn, 2010 -> 2024: Japan 38.32 -> 26.94; China 29.55 -> 68.91; Germany 27.19 -> 26.31; Korea 21.68 -> 24.73; US 18.76 -> 20.05; Russia 17.15 -> 10.56; India 7.23 -> 10.05; Indonesia 1.238 -> 24.195. World ranks among all countries in the API response: Indonesia 39th in 2010 (38 countries higher), 5th in 2024 (and 5th in 2022, its peak year, US$26.78bn; 2024 is 10% below that peak). Indonesia 2024 by HS4 (API, product level 4; sums to 24.195): 7202 ferro-alloys 12.81, of which HS6 720260 ferro-nickel 12.80 (Indonesia reports nickel pig iron under ferro-nickel); stainless steel 7218-7223 7.83 (7219 flat-rolled 5.58, 7218 ingots 2.21); 7207 semi-finished non-alloy steel 2.00; 7208 hot-rolled flat 0.57; 7213 bars 0.39; 7201 pig iron 0.28; rest 0.33. 2010: 7202 ferro-alloys 0.47 of 1.24 (38%). Nickel ore (2604): US$538.6m in 2010, US$0.67m in 2024. Derived by progrss: 24.195 / 1.238 = 19.5x; 12.81 (HS 7202) / 24.195 = 52.9%; 7.83 / 24.195 = 32.4%; ranks. The chart plots values; world ranks are among all countries in the API response. 'Nickel now leaves as metal' is an interpretation of the ore vs ferro-nickel figures (Indonesia banned raw nickel ore exports from 2020; not read on a primary page here). Most Indonesian ferro-nickel feeds stainless steel mills, not batteries. Related plate 011 (Indonesia mines two-thirds of the world's nickel) covers mining; this plate covers processed-metal exports. Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) per the Harvard Dataverse record doi:10.7910/DVN/T4CHWJ; credit The Growth Lab at Harvard University.
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