A Locomotive Sector in Turkish Manufacture Industry: The Iron and Steel Industry

The Turkish Iron and Steel Industry, a strategic manufacture sector, which constitutes the base of the industrialization undertakes a locomotive duty in the development. The foundations of Turkish iron and steel industry were laid in the 1930's. The Karabuk Iron and Steel Establishments, which is the first entegrated facility, were open to operate in 1939 and the establishments of Erdemir in 1965 and Isdemir in 1975 followed this flourishing. As well as the entegrated establishments founded by the Turkish State, with the involment of the private sector after the year 1960, the growth process of sector has increased. As parallel to the developments in economic structure, the crude steel production capacity of the private and public sectors of Turkey increased through the foundations opened to operate as from the second time of 1980's. As well as privatization of Isdemir in 2002, the sector possession was completely passed on to the private sector on completion of privatization of Erdemir shares in March in 2006. Today the Turkish iron and steel industry is the eleventh great producer of the world with the crude steel production capacity of 34.1 million ton and the production of 26.8 million ton. In this study, after mentioning about the foundation and development of the Turkish iron and steel industry, the subject matters of raw materials, energy and work force assurance, production and marketing have been dealt. Besides this, after stating the relationships of the iron and steel industry with other sectors and by product industry, the relationships of the Turkish iron and steel industry with the world iron and steel industry have been taken into consideration.