TÇÜD; Measures against increasing imports are vital for the Turkish economy and the sector

The Turkish Steel Producers Association stated the following in its assessment for June;

Türkiye, which ranked 8th in the world crude steel ranking with 19 million tons of crude steel production in the first half of 2022, ranked 10th after Iran and Brazil with a 16.3% decrease and 15.9 million tons of crude steel production in the same period of 2023. In a conjuncture where the world crude steel production decreased by 1.1%, the 16.3% decrease in the crude steel production of the Turkish steel sector clearly revealed that the sector has diverged negatively from the world steel sector.

On the other hand, while production decreased by 16.3%, following the increase in demand in the domestic market due to the reconstruction activities in the earthquake zone, imports increased by 23% in the January-June period, while consumption increased by 15.8%, indicating that the need is met through imports to the detriment of domestic production and this situation causes serious discomfort.

In the first half of 2023, exports decreased by 46% while imports increased by 23%, leading to a decrease in the ratio of exports to imports from 96.7% in the first half of 2022 to 47.9% in the first half of 2023. In the first six months of the year, imports of wire rod increased by 82.5%, leading to a 43.4% increase in the sector's long product imports. The extraordinary increase in imports of long products, of which Türkiye is a net exporter, reinforced concerns that the sector's foreign trade deficit would widen.

The fact that Asian countries such as China, India, South Korea and Indonesia, whose competitiveness has increased thanks to decreasing energy costs, are gradually increasing their shares in Türkiye's traditional markets, especially in Europe, and reducing our steel exports, while at the same time increasing our steel imports by turning to our country with dumped prices, has posed a serious threat to our steel foreign trade.

In order to prevent the increasing imports of dumped and poor quality products into our country and to increase the exports of our sector to its previous levels, it is of vital importance for both our steel foreign trade and the economy of our country that our country urgently implements measures similar to the safeguard measures implemented by many countries, especially the USA and the EU.