In one of the major industry updates, British Steel wins £35M contract to supply rail products for the high-speed rail network of Türkiye, confirmed a Downing Street statement.
As British Steel wins £35M contract, this new deal that goes on to follow a similarly sized contract, which was announced in 2024 for the Mersin–Adana–Osmaniye–Gaziantep project located in southern Türkiye, is part of a multi-million-pound package in terms of export deals that were unveiled by the prime minister at the G20 summit in Johannesburg over the weekend. Officials say that broader initiative is intended in order to open overseas markets when it comes to the UK companies and at the same time also promote trade links along with the Indo-Pacific as well as the African countries.
Starmer is supposed to be visiting a train depot in Johannesburg at the time of the trip, where he is going to observe trains that were built in Derby and also set out a separate UK–South Africa agreement that is aimed at supporting the reform of the rail system in South Africa. As per that arrangement, Crossrail International, which is a government-owned consultancy that was established after the Elizabeth line project, is going to offer strategic advice in order to attract private investment within the South African railways, with the intent of boosting social and economic as well as environmental outcomes and at the same time also creating opportunities when it comes to UK freight as well as passenger rail firms.
Apart from this, the UK and Vietnam have also announced a partnership in order to support a digital transformation of the rail network in Vietnam. The ministry of construction in Vietnam is going to work with the UK advisers on certain digital strategies that are modelled on those used for the Elizabeth line, while the existing ties of Crossrail International along with urban rail authorities in Hanoi as well as Ho Chi Minh City are cited as a base when it comes to future collaboration. UK consulting, engineering, and finance firms are anticipated to be positioned in order to pursue work in the expanding market of Vietnam.
This announcement comes as the UK looks forward to broadening its trade relationships outside the EU by way of focusing on infrastructure as well as technology projects in fast-growing countries. Notably, British Steel, which has gone on to face financial as well as ownership challenges in recent years, is indeed going to gain from a high-profile export order that goes on to support its rail products division. Rail materials, interestingly, are a long-standing UK export, and contracts such as these for high-speed networks can very well lead to more supply and maintenance work.
Earlier in 2025, it was announced that British Steel was at risk of collapsing, which led Network Rail to go ahead and stockpile almost 60,000t of rail made of steel, which should go ahead and cover around one year of operations.
Interestingly, the Parliament was recalled on 12 April 2025 since the government was so concerned regarding the possibility of British Steel turning off its last of the blast furnaces and hence causing a major interruption to domestic steel supply and the potential loss of almost 2,700 jobs at the Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, site.
Post that the government was successful in terms of passing the Steel Industry – Special Measures Act in the space of almost six and a half hours, which very well offered it certain powers in order to prevent Jingye, a Chinese company, which is the British Steel owner, from stopping the operations.
Later, it was announced that both Network Rail as well as British Steel had signed a landmark £500M contract so as to supply 337,000t of steel to the rail infrastructure manager in the next five years.
Starmer said that working with international partners in order to deliver jobs as well as opportunity at home is indeed a one-way ticket to growth.
