Brands are our national wealth: Trade minister

ISTANBUL

Turkey aims to make its record-breaking exports sector more sustainable and raise unit value of products shipped abroad, Turkish Trade Minister Mehmet Muş said during an event on Dec. 17.

“Brands are out national wealth. That’s why we should hold onto, protect and support them. Our exports have been breaking records of the history of the [Turkish] Republic. We have to focus on the concept of brand in order to maintain those records, achieve sustainable exports and increase them,” he said at the opening ceremony of Design Week Turkey 2021.

Exports “revolution” is about “design and branding, rather than the quantity and price,” he added.

Turkey’s exports rose 33.4 percent to $21.5 billion in November. Turkish exports hit $221 billion in the last 12 months, while the figure reached $203.1 billion in the first 11 months of this year.

The figures show that exports revenues overpassed the pre-pandemic levels.

Exports continued to be the driving force of growth in the third quarter, as contribution of net exports of goods and services to growth was 6.8 points.

The Turkish economy expanded 7.4 percent year on year in the third quarter, meeting expectations on the strength of retail demand, manufacturing and exports, official data showed on Nov. 30.

The GDP hit $225.5 billion in the third quarter. Annualized GDP grew to around $795 billion in the third quarter from nearly $765 billion through the previous three-month period.

Muş said that on the global scene, even in developed markets, Turkish products stand out because of their design.
“Design is not just a visual issue, it is central to the process of identifying customer needs, planning, prototyping and scaling up production,” he said.

TİM chair İsmail Gülle said Turkish designers rank seventh in the Global Design Index with 1,917 points, surpassing several countries such as Germany, Singapore, Russia and South Korea.

“Our goal is to further this success with stronger products and brands,” he added.

“There are a total of 342 design centers in Turkey, and we will increase this figure,” said Gülle.
Last year, Turkey’s export unit price was $1,09. “By 2030, we plan on raising our export unit price to $2 through adding value,” Gülle said.

The exports-to-imports coverage ratio reached 80 percent in November, up 4 percentage points from the same month last year.

Excluding energy imports, exports-to-imports ratio was 101.2 percent.

Turkey’s foreign trade deficit decreased by 13.6 percent in the January-November period compared to the same period last year and decreased to $39.2 billion.

The new economic model that Turkey is pursuing aims to grow the national economy by boosting investment, employment, production and exports, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Dec. 1, reiterating that this strategy will likely record more than 10 percent annual growth by the end of this year.