Steel Trade Balance Tarih: 23 January 2017
Steel products accounted for 7.6 % of total export of the Turkish economy with 10.8 billion dollars in terms of value. Turkey’s steel products export/import ratio increased from 95 % to 99 %. As a result, Turkey, after becoming a net steel importer despite having more than 19 mt idle capacity in 2015, continued its net importer position in 2016 despite some improvement.
Turkey’s net import in terms of tonnage fell from 2.3 mt to 600.000 t, while in terms of value net import shrinked from 560 million dollars to 100 million dollars. Turkey’s biggest deficit in steel trade was with the CIS region, which was 6.15 mt. After CIS region, the largest trade deficit was with Far East and South East Asia with 3.96 mt and EU with 0.97 mt. In return, net steel export to Middle East and Gulf countries was 4.9 mt, to USA was 2.29 mt, and to North Africa was 2.25 mt. In 2016 Turkey’s net semi-finished and flat steel import was 5.9 mt and 5.6 respectively, while net export of long products and pipes was 8.4 mt and 1.2 mt respectively.
World Steel Association’s data also confirms distortion and radical changes in Turkey’s steel trade patterns. As as result of the declining tendency in exports and increasing tendency in imports since 2012, Turkey became a net steel importer country. According to World Steel Association’s data, in 2015 Turkey moved to the 5th position among the world’s largest steel importers, ranked 8th among world’s largest steel consumer countries. However, Turkey dropped to world’s 9th largest steel exporter from 8th in 2014, moved to the 5th position among the largest steel importer of the world compared to 8th in 2014 and lost its position within largest net exporters, but entered to the world steel importers list from 14th position.