Ukraine crisis threatening steel industry: Businesswoman

ISTANBUL

The war in Ukraine is threatening the free trade agreement signed between this country and Turkey, Ekol Demir Çelik chairwoman Elif Tulay has said.

The agreement was signed last month to increase bilateral trade to $10 billion, but now the Turkish steel industry needs protection against the economic fallout from the conflict, Demirören News Agency quoted her as saying.

“Due to its geographical position, we have close export and import ties with Ukraine. We have been procuring most of the raw materials for the iron and steel industry from this country,” she said.

The Ukrainian market is particularly important for high-quality steel, she added.

Although Ekol Demir Çelik has enough stockpile of raw materials and high-quality steel, she is worried about the sector as a whole, Tulay noted.

Turkey’s total crude steel production increased by 12.7 percent to reach an all-time high of 40.4 million tons last year, according to data released by the Turkish Steel Producers’ Association (TÇÜD) on Jan. 24.

Turkey was the world’s eighth-largest crude steel producer after China, India, Japan, the United States, Russia, South Korea and Germany.

Brazil, Iran and Italy followed Turkey with their respective crude steel production volumes.