According to information obtained from the Turkish Steel Producers Association (TÇÜD), the Turkish steel industry completed the first quarter of the year with a decrease in production but an increase in consumption.
Turkey's crude steel production decreased by 18.6% in March compared to the same month of the previous year, reaching 2.7 million tons. In the first quarter of the year, production decreased by 21.5% to 7.4 million tons.
Final product consumption, on the other hand, increased by 33.7% in March compared to the same month of the previous year, reaching 3.4 million tons. In the first quarter of the year, it was calculated to have increased by 4.9% to 8.9 million tons.
Foreign trade data
In March, the export of steel products decreased by 52.8% in quantity, reaching 810.6 thousand tons compared to March 2022, and decreased by 54.3% in value, reaching 725.1 million dollars.
During the January-March period, exports also decreased by 48.3% in quantity, reaching 2.2 million tons compared to the same period in 2022, and decreased by 51.5% in value, reaching 1.9 billion dollars.
On the other hand, the import of steel products increased in March 2023 compared to the same month in 2022 by 42.9% in quantity, reaching 1.7 million tons, and increased by 5.9% in value, reaching 1.4 billion dollars.
During the January-March period, imports increased by 5.9% in quantity, reaching 4.1 million tons compared to the same period in the previous year. However, in terms of value, imports decreased by 16.8%, reaching 3.5 billion dollars.
The export-to-import ratio, which was 92.6% in the first quarter of last year, decreased to 53.9% in the first quarter of this year.
"Expectations for the recovery of the production loss gained strength in the second quarter of the year."
TÇÜD Secretary General Veysel Yayan said in a statement that the decrease in steel production in the first quarter of the year was also due to the earthquakes centered in Kahramanmaraş on February 6th.
Yayan stated that the production in the region, which had dropped to 227 thousand tons in February due to the start of operations by steel producers in the earthquake zone, rose to 534 thousand tons in March. "Turkey's total crude steel production reached 2.7 million tons in March, an increase of 28.9% compared to the previous month. The steel sector, which had dropped to 10th place in the world crude steel production rankings based on production volumes for the first two months of the year, rose to 9th place in March due to the recovery in production. Thus, expectations for the complete compensation of this production loss by the second quarter of the year gained strength," Yayan said.
Yayan drew attention to the fact that Russia and Far East countries, which carry out state-supported production and dumping exports in the first quarter of this year, could not export to the US and EU. He stated that, "Therefore, their focus on the Turkish market continued, the postponement of customs duties on flat products, and the decrease of 36.4% in flat product exports while imports increased by 32.2% caused the trade deficit in our steel sector to play a significant role in the growth, and caused concerns that the import of flat products would increase in May, and the trade deficit in the steel industry would continue to grow. With the effect of the contraction in global demand and high energy prices in March, a decrease in export data was observed compared to the same month of the previous year for our steel sector. It is expected that our sector will regain its competitiveness in global markets with the discounts applied to natural gas and electricity used in industry, and that production and export figures will gradually improve in April and May, and then gain stability and surpass the 2022 production levels starting from June."
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