According to the provisional foreign trade statistics compiled by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) and the Turkish Undersecretariat of Customs, in February this year Turkey's iron and steel exports totaled $496.51 million in value, decreasing by 32.2 percent year on year and up 19.24 percent over the previous month, while exports of articles of iron or steel declined by 3.6 percent compared to February 2009 and were up 6.82 percent month on month, amounting to a value of $342 million.
Meanwhile, in February Turkey's iron and steel imports totaled $875.95 million, increasing by 28.7 percent year on year but down 21.13 percent over January, while imports of articles of iron or steel rose by 21.3 percent compared to February 2009 and were up 7.97 percent month on month, reaching $120.24 million.
Thus, in terms of value, in February Turkey was a net importer of iron and steel, and its net imports totaled $379.44 million, compared to net exports of $51.56 million in February 2009.
On the other hand, in the first two months of 2010, the country's iron and steel exports stood at $912.81 million, while its iron and steel imports amounted to $1.99 billion, decreasing by 31.2 percent and up 32.2 percent respectively, both compared to the corresponding period of 2009.