Turkey’s plastics imports rise in July despite rising prices

08-Sep-10

According to the data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK), Turkey’s plastics imports in July 2010 rose when compared to the same period of 2009. Total plastics imports for July 2010 reached 294,000 tons, moving up from 287,000 tons in July 2009. As per Chemorbis, despite continuous increases in import prices over the last few months, as well as the volatile exchange rates, the country imported more plastics raw materials in July 2010 vs July 2009, but lesser than imports of June 2010. June 2010 was a record month for this year, with 324,000 tons of imports. The news about Turkey’s polymer imports in July 2010 is also fitting with the data released by the same institute, which showed Turkey’s industrial production in July 2010 rose 8.6% compared to July 2009, while it was down 0.3% from the previous month. Within the figures, manufacturing production was up 9.1% annually. Of the total polymer imports through July 2010, origins which are subject to customs duties accounted for 165,000 tons, while duty-free origins accounted for a smaller quantity of 128,000 tons. In July, duty-free origins saw a drop from June, while dutiable origins recorded a relatively smaller decline compared to the previous month of the same year. On a product by product basis, the previous upward trend in homo-PP imports turned downwards in July 2010, with the total import amount dropping to 77,000 tons when compared to June 2010. S-PVC imports recorded only a slight decrease moving down from the June figure of 51,000 tons to 49,000 tons in July. LDPE imports were down in July to 13,000 tons while HDPE imports decreased month over month to 42,000 tons. LLDPE imports tracked a stable trend for the fourth month in a row, being reported as 20,000 tons in July 2010. According to the cumulative imports statistics on ChemOrbis, the country has imported 2,114,000 tons over the seven month period to July 2010. Looking at the cumulative figures only, Turkey’s plastics imports over the first seven months of 2010, show a trend line above the past ten years of imports, going back to the same period of the year 2000.