According to the provisional foreign trade statistics compiled by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) and the Turkish Undersecretariat of Customs, in January this year Turkey's iron and steel imports totaled $1.5 billion, decreasing by 4.6 percent year on year and down 1.9 percent compared to December 2012. Iron and steel ranked third among the most imported products of the country in the given month.

Meanwhile, in January Turkey's imports of articles of iron or steel, which ranked 17th among the products with the highest import value, rose by 21.8 percent compared to January 2012 and were down 7.6 percent month on month, amounting to $208 million.

In the whole of 2012, the country's iron and steel imports stood at $19.6 billion, decreasing by 3.8 percent compared to 2011, while its imports of articles of iron or steel amounted to $2.4 billion, down by 6.1 percent year on year.