Market sources surveyed by Fastmarkets last week broadly agreed that the prospects for steel exports out of Turkey remained poor at the end of April, with no recovery likely soon because of trade barriers erected by authorities in the country's principal outlet markets.
This will affect steel output in Turkey, with local demand also limited by the country's economic uncertainty and the decline in the exchange-rate value of the Turkish lira since August 2018.The lira was trading at TRY100 to $16.7951 on Monday April 29, compared with TRY100 to $17.5769 on April 1, 2019, and TRY100 to $24.6848 on April 29, 2018, according to exchange-rate website Oanda.com.Turkey produced 8.189 million tonnes of crude steel in January-March 2019, a decrease of 14.54% from 9.582 million tonnes in the first three months of 2018, according to the Turkish Steel Producers Association (T???oeD).It exported a combined total of 21.40 million tonnes of steel products in the full year of 2018, a 20.80% increase year-on-year.But the country is unlikely to match that export level in 2019 because of several challenges.Ugur Dalbeler, chief executive officer of Turkish steelmaker ??olakoglu Metalurji, who is also a member of the board...