China, Türkiye and India supplied more than €33 billion worth of goods covered by existing European Union Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) codes in 2025, according to Eurostat-based calculations. Their trade values show the scale of supply to European buyers, but do not establish which country or producer is most competitive under CBAM.
China accounted for €17.09 billion of the goods, Türkiye for €10.83 billion and India for €5.30 billion. Eurostat is the source of the trade data used in the calculations.
The three countries are important to European metal supply chains, but national averages and customs values do not capture differences between producers and installations. A blast-furnace steel plant, a scrap-based electric arc furnace mill and an aluminium smelter can have materially different CBAM-relevant emissions profiles, reflecting direct process emissions and the sourcing of precursors.
Emissions evidence and certificate costs
The European Commission set the CBAM certificate price at €82.32 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (t CO2e) in the third quarter of 2026, compared with €75.28 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent in the second quarter. The final cost for a tonne of imported metal cannot be calculated by multiplying the certificate price by a national emissions factor alone.
EU buyers must consider verified actual emissions data or relevant defaults, the product-specific free-allocation adjustment, possible recognition of a carbon price effectively paid abroad and the applicable certificate price. Legal calculation methods, emissions boundaries and adjustment benchmarks also affect the result, alongside conventional logistics and quality factors.
The customs value of 2026 annual imports is not the same as the CBAM certificates an importer will surrender in 2027. The effects on competitiveness will vary by product and customer: a supplier with robust factory-level evidence may preserve market access despite carbon-intensive production, while a lower-emitting exporter could lose a potential advantage if it cannot prove its performance.
Procurement shifts toward verified carbon data
Procurement teams should compare suppliers for the same CN8 product and technical specifications, assessing at least three bids on cost, verified emissions, delivery reliability and legal documentation. The sourcing comparison may also change negotiating power along the supply chain.
Possible supplier responses include cleaner production, better emissions metering, contractual guarantees, revised delivery arrangements and changes to EU buyers’ sourcing mix. European industrial competition is shifting from price and quality alone toward price, quality and provable carbon content.
