Overall imports to Turkey set a record high for the month of January, but the monthly total failed to surpass the record set in December 2010, as per Chemorbis. However, January figure was the highest ever for the month - All products surged higher year over year except for PET which has seen imports tumble down.
Homopolymer PP imports maintained a record high for the third consecutive month at 88,000 tons. Turkey first hit this record of 88,000 tons in November 2010, carried the tonnage to December. Copolymer PP imports could not maintain December’s record high level, but at 34,000 tons for the month of January, it was the highest for the month on record. Homo-PP imports were dominated by Saudi Arabia at 45,821 tons with the closest competitor being Greece at just 6,764 tons despite its duty free status compared to Saudi Arabia.
PVC imports also reached their highest level for the month of January compared to past Januaries at 69,000 tons although it was below the record high of December at 74,000 tons. Looking at exporters to Turkey, American PVC blew away the competition by far with no other origin even coming close to the 20,408 tons imported from America.
After months of tight supplies in 2010, Turkish buyers appeared keen to stock up on LLDPE. Imports of LLDPE in January reached the highest level ever at 32,000 tons and created a large gap on year over year basis as the country imported just 16,000 in January 2010, half of this year’s total. HDPE also had a good showing as imports totaled 52,000 tons, above December’s figure of 51,000 tons and January 2010’s figure of 45,000 tons. LDPE imports were also higher at 20,000 tons compared to 19,000 tons in December 2010 and 14,000 tons in January 2010, but higher imports of the product have been seen in past years. Saudi Arabia was the top exporter to Turkey for both LLDPE and HDPE although Iran was a close second for HDPE imports. For LDPE, however, Iran was the top exporter to the country. Overall PS imports came in below December but above January 2010 at 22,000 tons. The PS market was dominated by Belgium. Imports of PET bottle grade, meanwhile, were the only figures which came in below the year ago period. PET imports were at 9,000 tons in January compared to 18,000 tons in December and 10,000 tons in January 2010. Both Pakistan and Iran were the top contributors to Turkey’s PET market in January.
03-Mar-11 
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