SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The latest trade statistics published by the Turkish Iron and Steel Producers’ Association (TCUD) indicates significant decline in scrap imports during the initial six months of 2019.

The scrap imports during this period totaled around 9 million tons. This was down significantly by 16.4% when compared with the same period a year before. The Turkish scrap imports were valued at around $2.4 billion. The value of imports dropped sharply by nearly 24% in comparison with the previous year.

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The U.S. continued to be the top supplier. The imports from the U.S. witnessed year-on-year decline by over 18% to total 1.62 million tons. Turkey imported 1.25 million tons of scrap from the Netherlands. The imports from that country were up by 3.78% from H1 2018.

The Chinese scrap imports too reported considerable decline, falling by almost 82% from the previous year. The imports totaled nearly 156,000 tons in Jan-June ’19. The key suppliers were South Korea (270,000 tons) and Japan (26,000 tons).