Turkish companies exported 1.92mn mt of hot-rolled coil (HRC) in the first eight months of 2020 compared with 2.26mn mt in the same period last year, due to trade tensions with the EU.
Italy remained the main destination for Turkish flat products in January-August 2020, according to SteelData’s statistics, though shipments to the country decreased by 12pc to 641,000mt. The second largest outlet was Egypt, where Turkey increased exports by 74.3pc to 320,000mt. Shipments to Spain, which rounded off the top three HRC buyers from Turkey, dropped by 23.4pc to 291,000mt.
Turkish HRC supply to Bulgaria increased to 87,000mt during the period under review from 83,000mt a year ago, while its exports to Iraq rose to 72,000mt from 31,000mt.
Turkey’s HRC exports to the EU-28, which remained the main destination for the product with a share of 65.6pc, decreased by 25.9pc to 1.26mn mt amid lower quotas, according to SteelData. Demand for Turkish flat products increased in North Africa in the first eight months of the year. Around 20.1pc of Turkey’s flat products were sent to this region with shipments growing by 50.7pc to 387,000mt.