Releasing its short-range outlook for 2018 and 2019 at its 52nd annual meeting held in Tokyo on October 16-17, worldsteel (World Steel Association) indicated that steel demand in Turkey will decline by 2.3 percent in 2018 to 35.2 million mt, but will rise by 1.5 percent to 35.8 million mt in 2019.
In its press release, worldsteel contributed the predicted contraction in Turkish steel demand in 2018 to the currency crisis the country has been facing, while it added that government stabilization measures and a consequent return to the competitiveness of the country’s manufacturing sector are expected to help its steel demand to recover in 2019.
Commenting on Turkey, Saeed Al Remeithi, chairman of the worldsteel economics
committee and also CEO of UAE-based steelmaker Emirates Steel, stated that while interest rates hikes in Turkey had mitigated the depreciation of the Turkish lira, they also undermined household spending and economic activity. He also remarked on the large risk of debt insolvency in the Turkish corporate sector due to the loss of value of the lira, though adding that the currency depreciation was helping the manufacturing sector in terms of exports. If the currency crisis is contained, then a recovery in the economy and in the country’s steel demand can be expected in 2019, he affirmed.