More countries are turning to protectionism, impacting not only the flat steel market in Europe, but trading globally, Turkish Flat Steel Import, Export and Industry Association (Yisad) chairman Metin Tayfun Iseri said at the Kallanish Global Flat Steel conference in Istanbul on 16 October.
“Every country will have to introduce protection measures, and the main trend now is localisation with new tariffs, and smaller capacities,” he said.
“For the export market, it is going to be very difficult, everybody is going to survive in their own limits and the US has set this example, followed by the EU. Egypt is doing something similar, and Turkey is doing the same thing. A lot of countries will have to take measures against the Chinese producers, because in the first nine months of this year they’ve had record volumes of flat exports,” he added.
Some new protection measures mean market participants can no longer buy slab from China, reroll in India, and then export to the US, he noted.
“Every country will have to close its steel market with the help of tariffs and restrictions,” said GMK Center chief executive Stanislav Zinchenko.
“Thanks to this, we will see two kinds of prices, including for hot rolled prices – global and local ones, which will be the new reality. This is only the beginning of this new wave, and we see this already also in India, Turkey, Canada and other countries,” he added.
Meanwhile, Selcuk Yilmaz, general manager of Yildiz Demir Celik, noted that Turkey is currently importing hot rolled coil mainly from China, which is then exported to Ukraine and other places.
“This will most probably change with the new EU tariffs, which will hurt Turkish exports. The country’s steel capacity will also not increase in 2026 due to other new anti-dumping measures,” he added.
Svetoslav Abrossimov Bulgaria
