At the opening of the SteelOrbis 2018 Fall Conference & 79th IREPAS Meeting held in Istanbul on September 16-18, which celebrates the 35th year of this bi-annual meeting, Murat Cebecioglu, chairman of IREPAS, the global association of producers and exporters of long steel products, and also export manager of Turkish steelmaker ICDAS, welcomed all the participants to the event. The SteelOrbis 2018 Fall Conference & 79th IREPAS Meeting has gathered together a record number of over 500 participants, including a total of 134 representatives from 50 steel producers from 22 countries and 84 representatives from 46 raw material suppliers.
The IREPAS chairman said that free and fair trade are praised principles which allow resources to flow to their best use, “Countries and companies must embrace this message; however, they are closing themselves off”, Mr. Cebecioglu added.
He emphasized that IREPAS has continuously been an advocate for free and fair trade, while admitting that these are unfortunately difficult times for world trade. The IREPAS chairman said that recent measures by the US are not justified by the World Trade Organization, while many countries which are facing measures today are actually not the source of the problem, but are being hurt by these measures. He added that it is very hard to negotiate with the US while trade measures are being used as a political weapon.
However, Mr. Cebecioglu said that despite all of these trade tensions, business sentiment is still positive, though with fluctuations in certain areas due to instability. He also warned that the supply and demand balance may be disturbed if trade tensions continue. He pointed out that import quota implementation by the EU will push up prices especially accordingly as the quota is used up. The IREPAS chairman also commented on Canada’s measures against Turkey, labeling them as “unheard of”.
