Turkey’s exports led by car sector rise in August

ARTVİN

Turkey’s exports reached $12.5 billion in September the TİM President Mehmet Büyükekşi has announced. DAILY NEWS photo

Turkey’s exports reached $12.5 billion in September with an 11 percent rise from the same month a year earlier, led by the hike in the automotive sector, totaling $111.9 billion in the first nine months, according to figures revealed by the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TİM).

The automotive sector’s exports accounted for the major part of total export volume in September as it reached $1.9 billion with a 31.3 percent increase from the same period of the previous year. While the ready sector exports volume ranked second with $1.5 billion, the chemical material sector followed it with $1.4 billion exports volume.

Turkey’s exports to the European Union rose by 12 percent in the same period as the exports to the Commonwealth of Independent States rose by 7 percent and to the Middle East by 7 percent, said TİM President Mehmet Büyükekşi said during a press meeting held in the Black Sea Region province of Artvin yesterday.

“While economic activities and growth are up, they are down in the developing countries due to capital outflow. The developing countries will eventually continue to grow faster than the developed countries, but we are in a normalization and recovery period,” Büyükekşi said.

Merchandise exports up

He stated that Turkey continued to grow in the last 15 quarters as it had the third highest growth rate, 4.4 percent in the second quarter, in the world after China and Indonesia. He noted that the exports didn’t make a net contribution to the growth in the first half as also a fall in gold exports and geopolitical risks caused problems. But Turkey’s merchandise exports continued to grow as its growth rate reached 9.5 percent in the third quarter, he added. “We are raising the rate of increase of merchandise exports,” he said.

Büyükekşi said after the United States Federal Reserves’ decision to postpone tapering economic stimulus last month caused uncertainty period until the next meeting by the end of this month. “We shouldn’t let the United States Federal Reserves’ decisions confuse us. Our exports’ future does not depend on the Fed,” he said. While Turkey grew considerably between 2002 and 2007 in the “normal” period on a global scale, it was also able to continue growing between 2008 and 2012, the “new normal” period.

Büyükekşi said that they had a target; to reach $500 billion of export volume by 2023. However, he added that they needed to focus on raising the value of additional products and direct foreign investments because net capital inflow was decreasing.