According to the provisional foreign trade statistics compiled by the Turkish Statistical Institute and the Turkish Undersecretariat of Customs, in October this year Turkey's foreign trade deficit decreased to USD 5.5 billion from USD 8 billion in October 2011. In the iron and steel sector, Turkey's foreign trade deficit was USD 724 million in October decreasing from USD 824 million recorded in the same month last year.

In October this year, Turkey's iron and steel exports totaled USD 962 million, increasing by 9.5% over September and up 3.3% YoY. Iron and steel ranked fourth among the products of the country with the highest export value in October.

Meanwhile, in October exports of articles of iron or steel which ranked 8 among the products with the highest export value fell slightly by 0.2% MoM and were down 2.6% compared to October 2011 amounting to USD 513.8 million.

In the first 10 months of 2012, the country's iron and steel exports stood at USD 9.66 billion while its exports of articles of iron or steel amounted to USD 4.9 billion increasing by 3.7% and up 3.1% respectively both compared to the corresponding period of 2011.