“Reducing flat steel imports would reduce the country's foreign trade deficit by 10%”

Veysel Yayan, Secretary General of the Turkish Steel Producers Association, who participated in a TV broadcast and answered questions about steel production and the country's steel imports, said that there is a slowdown in steel production, noting that imports from Far Eastern countries continue to increase and that this has dire consequences, and that the imports in question mean a large import that will affect the Turkish economy.

Underlining that a solution should be sought for this situation in a country that has many problems with foreign currency, Yayan said, “This amount was 9.5 million tons in flat products last year, which is 9.5 billion dollars. This is a huge import that will negatively affect not only the sector but also the Turkish economy. If it is significantly reduced only in flat steel, the country's foreign trade deficit would decrease by around 10 percent.”

“China has a steel capacity of 1 billion 150 million tons”

Emphasizing that such imports are not meaningful in a country with serious problems with foreign currency, Veysel Yayan said, “Especially considering that we have an excess capacity of around 60 percent of domestic demand in terms of capacity, it is a great deficiency that the capacity realized with great resource allocation cannot be used. There is 60 million tons of capacity in steel, and it will increase, we used 33 million tons of it last year, we will use 37 of it this year, and there is an idle capacity of around 24 million. Looking at China, it has a steel capacity of 1 billion 150 million tons and uses 91.6 percent of it. It does this through exports and invades the world market.”