Feb 20 (LTIT) - The Turkish scrap imports registered marginal decline in 2018. In accordance with the data published by the Turkish Iron and Steel Producers Association (TCUD), the country’s imports were down slightly by 1.5% over the previous year to total nearly 20.7 million tons in 2018. The value of imports surged higher by more than 16% to approximately $7.1 billion.

The major scrap supplier to Turkey in 2018 was the U.S. The imports from that country totaled 3.7 million tons. The second largest supplier was the UK, whose supplies totaled around 2.6million tons, falling by almost 17% from the year before.

The scrap trade data released by the Japanese Ministry of Finance (MoF) indicates that the country imported around 220,000 tons of scrap in 2018. This is modestly down by 7.1% when compared to 2017. The imports from the U.S. totaled around 89,000 tons, accounting for more than 41% of the total imports by Japan during the year. The U.S. supplies more than doubled upon comparison with 2017.

The Russian scrap exports totaled around 5.2 million tons in 2018. The major destination of export was Turkey which received around 2.5 million tons of scrap from Russia, followed by Balarus with imports of nearly 950,000 tons.

South Africa exported around 459,000 tons of scrap during the previous year, with almost 51% directed to India. India’s scrap imports from South Africa totaled 232,000 tons. Meantime, the Japanese scrap exports dropped significantly by almost 10% year-on-year to around 7.4 million tons of scrap in 2018. The key destination of exports from Japan was South Korea, whose imports totaled around 4.07 million tons.