Turkish steel producers believe that their market has become a 'backyard' for European steel firms, they told Fastmarkets on Thursday August 15.
This was demonstrated by trade data which showed that Turkey's flat steel sector has returned to deficit in terms of the trade with EU countries, they said. This unbalanced relationship has long been the traditional market position, they added.The table below shows the import tonnages from various nations for the first six months of 2018 and 2019, and corresponding figures for the first and second quarters of 2019.Some signficant increases can be seen. Notably, in the half-year comparisons, Romania more than doubled its shipments to Turkey, while Italy's volumes almost tripled. In the quarterly comparisons, Romania's figure nearly doubled, while the volumes from Italy and Germany surged enormously. In only two of the comparisons did the import volume into Turkey go down.Overall, exports of HRC by European steel producers to Turkey totalled...