February exports decline 35 percent in Turkey

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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The slowdown in key markets of Western Europe and elsewhere has dealt a heavy blow to Turkey’s exports.

Turkish exports fell 35 percent year-on-year in February to $6.87 billion, according to Turkish Exporters Association, or TİM, data revealed in the northwestern province of Bursa yesterday.

Turkey’s exports within the first two months of the year totaled $13.0 billion, said TİM Chairman Mehmet Büyükekşi. The country’s 12-month period exports rose 8 percent to nearly $121.7 billion, he said. The TİM figures are released almost a month before official data, which they tend to match, according to Reuters.

Automotive industry, although hit hard by the global economic crisis, still managed to implement exports worth $1.98 billion. It was the only industry that has managed to surpass $1 billion in exports, Büyükekşi told members of the press during the meeting.

The iron and steel industry followed automotive with exports worth $984 million. Ready-to-wear clothing industry exports were worth $967 million. Exports of sectors related to agriculture and stockbreeding dropped 3.31 percent in February. These sectors had a 14.39 percent share in Turkey’s total exports for the month of February.

Industrial exports covered 83.88 percent of Turkey’s total February exports. However, industrial exports also contracted 38.26 percent to nearly $5.76 billion in the period. Industrial’s exports for the first two months of the year totaled $11.5 billion, according to TİM data. Industry’s 12-month period exports surpassed $104.5 billion, Büyükekşi said.

Mining exports declined 51.29 percent to $118.6 million. The mining industry implemented exports worth $274.5 million during the first two months of the year. The 12-month export figure for mining exports stood at $3.66 billion, reported Anatolia News Agency, citing Büyükekşi.

"The decline in Turkey’s exports is a reflection of what is happening elsewhere in Europe, and indeed globally," Timothy Ash of the Royal Bank of Scotland told Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review, describing the current process as one of "huge de-globalization and de-leveraging" which will likely result in much weaker GDP growth numbers."

"Turkey has significantly opened up to the globalization process, with much increased trade and foreign investment. Latest figures suggest it too is massively impacted by the above process," he said.

"The economy is likely to push significantly into recession in 2009 and this creates new/additional challenges for the government. Clearly the budget deficit will rise as budget revenues ease back, while also demands on public spending increase as unemployment increases," said Ash.

"The plus for Turkey is that lower energy import costs help offset the impact of declining exports," he added.

"The global economic crisis hit Bursa the worst. The reason is quite apparent," said Büyükekşi. "The crisis hit the finance sector the worse. The second sector on the list is automotive." Bursa, which plays a major role in Turkey’s export deals, ranked second among all other cities with its 2008 export figures, said Büyükekşi. Companies operating in the city managed to obtain $11.5 billion from its export deals in 2008.

Bursa has turned into a global brand thanks to its automotive industry, according to Büyükekşi, adding that other companies in the city operating in textile, ready-to-wear as well as iron and steel also implemented a decent amount of exports.

In global competition, Bursa has world standards, he said. Bursa suffered a heavy blow from the global turmoil because the automotive industry was hit hard by the global economic crisis, said Büyükekşi.

"Our automotive industry is very dependent on foreign markets. Therefore our automotive industry and producers of the industry’s side products have been seriously hurt by the crisis. However we do no not have a short-term view for our automotive industry. These fluctuations and the crisis will eventually come to an end. Then, we believe, the export potential of this city will begin to rise again."

Bursa will play a key role in achieving Turkey’s goal of implementing exports worth $500 billion by 2023, Büyükekşi said. "We don’t have any doubts about that."