Turkey has finished its special protecting probe on steel imports from Russia, without imposing restrictions, Russia’s Industry and Trade Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday, according to Mail.ru News.
Turkey is the largest export market for Russian steelmakers.
“As a result of an investigation, the Turkish side made a unanimous decision to terminate the probe without imposing any restrictions due to the lack of a sharp and substantial growth of steel products imports to the Turkish market, and a serious damage or threat of inflicting such a damage to Turkish producers,” Minister Denis Manturov was quoted as saying.
The work of Russia’s trade mission in Turkey has allowed “consolidating the efforts on preventing introduction of barriers against Russians steel products and maintaining Russian supplies to the Turkish market worth over $1.5 billion on average,” the minister noted, according to Russian media.
In April 2018, Turkey launched a probe regarding steel imports as the U.S.’ move to impose tariffs on imported steel resulted in redirection of flows of products to the country. In October 2018, Turkey introduced temporary quotas, imposing an additional 25% duty on metal imports above the established quota.
MMK, NLMK, Metalloinvest and Severstal are the biggest Russian exporters of steel to Turkey. Severstal said it has no plans to adjust supply due to the policy of the Turkish authorities.
“The regions of the Middle East accounted for 3% of sales,” a company representative said.
NLMK believes that “the decision of Turkey will contribute to the development of mutual commodity circulation in the interests of Turkish steel consumers who produce competitive products, including those made from NLMK steel.” The company also took part in the investigation and continued to supply Turkey.
