According to the customs statistics provided by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK), Turkey's slab imports amounted to 164,269 metric tons in February this year, falling 7.8 percent compared to the previous month, the second consecutive month of month-on-month decrease, after four months of increase and having reached an all-time monthly high in December 2012. However, Turkey's slab imports in February this year indicated a very strong increase compared to the 49,183 mt recorded in the same month of 2012.
In the first two months of the year, Turkey's slab imports increased to 342,517 mt, compared to the 74,194 mt recorded in the corresponding period of 2012. Turkey's biggest slab import source in the first two months of the year was Russia with 183,982 mt, with the import volume from Russia rising gradually since September last year on month-on-month basis, while the UK followed Russia, exporting 90,597 mt of slab to Turkey in January-February. The UK, Turkey's top slab import source in 2012, supplied 90,597 mt in the two months in question, with no record of UK slab exports to Turkey in the corresponding period of 2012.
Turkey's slab import distribution with respect to source countries in January-February is as follows:
