According to the provisional foreign trade statistics compiled by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) and the Turkish Undersecretariat of Customs, in March this year Turkey's iron and steel exports totaled $795.81 million in value, increasing by 6.6 percent year on year and up 60.28 percent over the previous month, while exports of articles of iron or steel rose by 18.9 percent compared to March 2009 and were up 26.57 percent month on month, amounting to a value of $432.88 million.
Meanwhile, in March Turkey's iron and steel imports totaled $1.38 billion, increasing by 77.8 percent year on year and up 57.15 percent over February, while imports of articles of iron or steel rose by 30.4 percent compared to March 2009 and were up 39.9 percent month on month, reaching $160.39 million.
Thus, in terms of value, in March Turkey was a net importer of iron and steel, and its net imports totaled $580.71 million, compared to net imports of $29.15 million in March 2009.
On the other hand, in the first quarter of 2010, the country's iron and steel exports stood at $1.71 billion, while its iron and steel imports amounted to $3.37 billion, decreasing by 17.5 percent and up 47.8 percent respectively, both compared to the corresponding period of 2009.