Press Release June 2025

STEEL PRODUCTION

In June 2025, Turkey's crude steel production decreased by 3.5% compared to the same month last year, falling to 2.9 million tons. In the first half of the year, production decreased by 1.7%, reaching 18.3 million tons.

STEEL CONSUMPTION

Final product consumption in June 2025 increased by 8.8% compared to the same month in 2024, reaching 3.1 million tons. In the first half of the year, final product consumption decreased by 2.6%, falling to 18.6 million tons.

FOREIGN TRADE

Export

In June 2025, steel product exports increased by 21.5% in terms of quantity compared to the same month in 2024, reaching 1.4 million tons, and by 13.5% in terms of value, reaching 931.3 million dollars. In the January-June period, steel product exports increased by 18.6% in terms of quantity compared to the same period in 2024, reaching 7.7 million tons, and by 8.8% in terms of value, reaching 5.2 billion dollars.

Import

In June 2025, steel product imports increased by 52.4% in terms of quantity compared to the same month in 2024, reaching 1.8 million tons, and by 28.7% in terms of value, reaching 1.2 billion dollars. In the January-June period, steel product imports increased by 12.6% in terms of quantity compared to the same period in 2024, reaching 9.3 million tons, and decreased by 0.3% in terms of value, reaching 6.5 billion dollars.

Foreign Trade Balance

In the January-June period of 2024, the export-to-import ratio was 73.5%. Thanks to the upward trend in exports, this ratio rose to 80.2% in the same period of 2025, but it fell behind the 83.4% of the four-month period due to the high increase in imports in June.

WORLD STEEL PRODUCTION

According to the June 2025 data announced by the World Steel Association (worldsteel), world crude steel production decreased by 5.8% compared to the same month last year, reaching 151.4 million tons, and by 2.2% in the January-June period compared to the previous period, reaching 934.3 million tons. In the January-June period, China's crude steel production decreased by 3% compared to the same period last year, reaching 514.8 million tons. India's crude steel production, which ranks second, increased by 9.2%, reaching 80.9 million tons, while Japan's production decreased by 5%, falling to 40.5 million tons.

EVALUATION

In the first half of 2025, Turkey's crude steel production decreased by 1.7% compared to the same period last year, reaching 18.3 million tons, and the decrease in production lagged behind the 2.2% decrease in global steel production. In the first quarter of the year, final product consumption decreased by 7.3%, while in the second quarter, consumption increased by 2.3%, reaching 18.6 million tons. In the first halves of previous years, flat products constituted the majority of consumption by a small margin, while in 2025, 9.5 million tons of consumption consisted of long products; 9.1 million tons consisted of flat products. In the first half of the year, our steel foreign trade deficit with Far Eastern countries and Russia continued to grow. Our imports from the Far East region increased by 9.9% in the first half of the year, reaching 4.7 million tons, while our exports decreased by 29%, remaining at an extraordinarily low level of 59.2 thousand tons. Similarly, our imports from Russia increased by 74.5%, reaching 2.2 million tons, while our exports decreased by 73.6%, falling to 11.1 thousand tons. The largest losses in our exports were experienced in the Latin American market. Our exports to this region decreased by 29.5%, falling to 355 thousand tons. However, with our exports to the EU market increasing by 38.6%, reaching 3.4 million tons, an 18.6% increase was observed in our total steel product exports. Last month, the EU Commission envisaged additional support mechanisms worth billions of Euros for certain industries within the scope of the Clean Industry Agreement to reduce energy prices with decarbonization activities. Thus, the issue of increasing the 16.1 billion Euros of aid provided to the EU steel industry in the first half of 2025 came to the fore. The 52.4% increase in imports seen in June caused serious discomfort in our steel sector. Especially imports made within the scope of inward processing regime (IPR) from China, Russia, and other Far Eastern countries further increased this discomfort. Imports within the scope of IPR, approaching 100% in some products, showed that the IPR mechanism, initially organized for the processing and export of products not produced in our country, has come to compete with the production capacity in Turkey to achieve limited value-added exports in the current situation. In this respect, this situation, which is completely contrary to the main purpose of IPR, clearly demonstrated the need to review the IPR application as soon as possible. On the other hand, taking measures to prevent traffic deviation from imports to these countries, especially those that have taken additional protective measures due to US and EU tariffs, is important in terms of the contribution of our sector to closing the current account deficit.