Analysis of the impact of turkey's initiation of safeguard investigation on imported PET bottle chips

On December 31, 2025, the Turkish Ministry of Trade issued Announcement No. 2026/1, stating that, in response to an application from Turkish producers, it had initiated a safeguard investigation into imports of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) with an intrinsic viscosity not less than 78 ml/g (Turkish: 78ml/g veya daha fazla viskozitesi olanlar). The announcement also proposed the imposition of a provisional safeguard duty of $100 per ton on the product in question, with the measure to be in effect for no more than 200 days. The Turkish tariff code for the product involved is 3907.61.00.00.00.

Turkey is a significant production, consumption, and trade hub for textiles and PET bottle chip in Eurasia. Turkey's local PET bottle chip production capacity is approximately 1.33 million tons per year. There are four main PET bottle chip plants in Turkey: Meltem, Indorama, Koksan, and Sasa. However, Meltem primarily produces recycled PET (RPET) and has already been excluded from the capacity base. Therefore, strictly speaking, the main producers are the latter three. In recent years, companies involved in capacity expansion include Koksan and Sasa.

Based on Chinese customs data for 2024 and the first 11 months of 2025 (aggregated under tariff code 39076110 only), China's exports of PET bottle chip to Turkey amounted to 111,000 tons and 139,000 tons, respectively. From January to November 2025, exports increased by 37.6% year-on-year, accounting for 2.4% of China's total PET bottle chip exports. This has a relatively limited impact on Chinese PET bottle chip companies' exports. According to 2024 export data, Jiangsu and Liaoning provinces were the main sellers to Turkey, accounting for 93.6% of Turkey's imports.

According to Turkish customs data (note that statistical differences may arise due to varying shipping and customs declaration time across countries), Turkey's exports of high-viscosity PET bottle chip in 2024 were 438,000 tons, with Italy accounting for approximately 18% of the total. Imports amounted to 118,000 tons, with mainland China accounting for about 77%. From January to October 2025, Turkey exported 465,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 34.1%, primarily to Italy and Belgium. Italy was the top destination with imports of 109,300 tons, a 73.3% year-on-year increase, accounting for approximately 24% of Turkey's total exports. Imports to Belgium surged from 37,000 tons to 89,300 tons, an increase of 141%. Total imports during this period were 183,500 tons, with mainland China accounting for 79%.

Therefore, from the perspective of trade flows in imports and exports, Turkey primarily serves as a transit hub between China and the European Union. On one hand, it imports relatively affordable PET bottle chip from mainland China to meet domestic demand. On the other hand, it intensifies efforts to develop the EU market, leveraging regional price differences to obtain higher profits.

Regarding Turkey's initiation of a safeguard investigation into imported PET bottle chip, we believe that, on one hand, this is due to significant market share losses suffered by certain local PET chip plants, which have relatively weak competitiveness in both export and domestic markets, prompting them to apply for a temporary safeguard duty. On the other hand, Turkey's production capacity has grown rapidly in recent years, leading to an imbalance between domestic supply and demand. Relying solely on exports cannot ultimately solve the problem and may even trigger anti-dumping investigations in target markets (such as the EU's previous investigation into Vietnam). Therefore, measures are needed to protect domestic enterprises. This bears some similarity to South Korea's anti-dumping investigation against China in the past, where South Korea experienced a decline in exports to the United States while Chinese PET chip companies captured a portion of the domestic market over a certain period. However, there are differences, as Turkey's measure is not specifically targeting Chinese PET chip exporters but essentially imposes duties on all imports entering the Turkish market. Nevertheless, no final conclusion has been reached yet, and market participants must wait patiently.