At the SteelOrbis Market Talks Meeting recently held in Bursa in northwestern Turkey, Erkan Kafadar, CEO of Borcelik, one of Turkey's leading galvanized sheet producers, and Engin Meydan, CEO of Turkish sheet metal formation and die producer Beycelik, shared their views on the current situation in the
Turkish flat steel sector.
Erkan Kafadar started his speech by stating that the three strategic flat steel consuming sectors in Turkey are the automotive, domestic appliance and panel radiator sectors. He went on to affirm that Turkey is in a competitive position in the international markets with these three sectors, with 70 percent of exports from the sectors directed to Europe. In addition, Mr. Kafadar noted that important investments have been made in flat steel production in Turkey in recent years, with Turkey switching to being an exporter of flat steel from being an importer, even if none of these steel investments has started to produce at full capacity yet. At the same time, these investments have caused the growth of flat steel output in Turkey to outpace the growth of flat steel consumption. However, Mr. Kafadar said that this imbalance may be brought into a situation of equilibrium by 2016-2017, considering increasing domestic flat steel use in line with the growth of Turkish steel using sectors such as automotive.
Meanwhile, Engin Meydan mentioned the important investments made in the Turkish automotive sector, pointing to the progress in the supply of material from Turkey for the global automotive industry. Mr Meydan also emphasized that the growth in the Turkish automotive industry in the first two months of 2012 remained stable compared to the last quarter of 2011, but added that a recovery may be seen entering the second half of the current year.