Turkish wire rod market maintained its quiet state this week. Buyers in this market prefer the wait-and-see approach due to the slow down in the construction industry as well as the weather conditions. Furthermore, this week number of import offers from Europe are heard to have increased in the west of Turkey.
As a result of the narrowing demand in the Turkish domestic market, the competition among the wire mesh and wire producers got severe. Producers that can adjust their cost accordingly and sell below the average market price are mostly preferred by the buyers in this market.
As per the export figures for January, we see that main export markets of Turkish wire rod are USA with 21,262 mts, Singapore with 19,000 mts and Israel with 4,020 mts. Total export figures for the month at 68,094 mts are pointing out to a 32,37 percent decrease when compared to January 2009 total of 100,690 mts. US market continues to be the most active export market as we have been mentioning in our analyses, for some time. It is heard that a high tonnage, mixed cargo biggest portion of which is wire rod has been loaded for shipment to US Gulf Port from Turkey by early February. Also Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Iraq and Africa are considered as potential export markets. These markets are potential for wire mesh sales as well as wire rod. Besides, the €/$ rate has reached 1,37 level is also playing its role to shape the flow of export direction. In the Far East, the slowdown is obvious due to the Chinese New Year.
In European wire rod market we see Italian producers in the domestic market are offering mesh making grade wire rod at €370-380/mt delivered to customer while drawing quality is offered at €385-395/mt with same delivery conditions. Contstruction projects in Italy too, slowed down due to heavy winter, therefore demand for welded wire mesh is currently weak.
In Greece, market players' approach to Turkish wire rod offers cautiously, due to the efforts to amend the country's economy.
Today, when the raw materials are struggling to maintain their stance, the most important things for Turkish wire rod market players are finding the best export market to move their tonnage to and finding the right dynamics to trigger the demand in the domestic market.