According to data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK), Turkey’s imports of steel flat products totaled 567,016 tons in March, jumping by 60.5% from 353,269 tons in the same month of 2012. In March, Turkey imported 407,552 tons of hot rolled coils (HRC), soaring by 78% year on year. Ukraine was the largest HRC exporter to Turkey with 98,484 tons and Russia was the second largest one with 91,858 tons. Meanwhile, the county imported 44,595 tons of cold rolled coils, falling by 12% year on year, including 20,795 tons from Russia, 6,758 tons from Belgium and 5,585 tons from Ukraine.
At the same time, Turkey’s imports of coated steel products totaled 75,473 tons, jumping by 51.5% year on year. Among them, 13,777 tons were from Belgium, 8,585 tons were from France and 7,965 tons were from Korea. In the first quarter of this year, Turkey’s imports of steel flat products amounted to 1,526,734 tons, increasing substantially by 38.3% year on year.