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 imports totaled $1.56 billion, decreasing by 4.1 percent year on year and up 11.2 percent compared to February this year. Iron and steel ranked third among the most imported products of the country in the given month.
Meanwhile, in March Turkey's imports of articles of iron or steel, which ranked 17th among the products with the highest import value, rose by 32 percent compared to March 2012 and were up 21.2 percent month on month, amounting to $249.3 million.
In the first quarter of 2013, the country's iron and steel imports stood at $4.4 billion, decreasing by 8.5 percent compared to the corresponding period of 2012, while its imports of articles of iron or steel amounted to $663 million, up by 26.2 percent year on year.