By Sehernur Karsu and Emir Yildirim
ANKARA (AA) – Türkiye’s crude steel production fell 1.9% year-on-year to 3.2 million tons in January, according to Turkish Steel Producers Association (TCUB) data released Monday.
The country’s final product consumption climbed 2.6% to 3.6 million tons last month.
Steel product exports rose 23% on an annual basis to 1.1 million tons in January, also jumping 14.6% in value, totaling $763.4 million.
As for sub-items, flat product exports rose 6.6% to 374,400 tons, long products 25.3% to 686,400 tons, and semi-products soared 401% to 61,000 tons in January.
Steel imports climbed 24.9% to 1.7 million tons, totaling $1.2 billion, up 11.2% in January.
Flat product imports rose 22.4% to 900,700 tons, long products fell 0.4% to 98,400 tons, and semi-products rose 32.9% to 729,800 tons.
The ratio of exports to imports climbed from 61.88 to 63.78 in January versus the same month last year.
Veysel Yayan, secretary-general of the TCUB, said in a statement that Türkiye surpassed Germany in crude steel production to rank seventh worldwide.
Yayan said US President Donald Trump imposing tariffs on Canada, Mexico, the EU, the UK, Brazil, Japan, and South Korea gave rise to expectations that the Turkish steel industry will be able to compete with these countries in the American market on equal terms.
“The reports that Trump’s tariffs have increased prices on the US domestic market by 15% has brought the possibility that this may be gradually reflected on the (steel) output and final product prices of other countries, while the EU’s response that it would retaliate harshly to the US tariffs caused concerns over third-party countries’ exports to the US being prevented from diverted to the EU,” he said.
“Considering that our steel sector can easily contribute at least $5 billion to narrowing Türkiye’s current account deficit, it is important to take measures to limit imports similar to what the US and the EU are doing,” he added, saying that protectionist policies will continue throughout the year and trade wars will intensify.