Global companies prefer Türkiye for production, exports: Minister

ANKARA

Global companies prefer Türkiye as production, export and their management centers, Trade Minister Ömer Bolat has said.

Türkiye offers many opportunities in different sectors where it has a competitive advantage, Bolat said in a speech he delivered at an event organized by the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (MÜSİAD) in Istanbul.

“We are negotiating new generation, comprehensive trade agreements which include areas such as goods trade as well as services and investments, in order to increase exports, strengthen competitiveness in industry and attract foreign capital to the country,” the minister said.

Bolat noted that Türkiye is among the top 10 countries with the most free trade agreements in the world.

Türkiye has become a regional power with records broken in exports and industry as well as large investments in the fields of health and education, he added, also stressing the investment the country made in air transport infrastructure.

Most of the targets set out in the medium-term program were already met in 2023, according to the minister.

Export revenues reached an all-time-high of $255.8 billion last year, against the initial target of $255 billion for that year, Bolat said.

“We aim for $267 billion export revenues and $110 billion in services exports in 2024.”

Türkiye's strategic location offers easy, same-day access to markets in 16 different time zones, from Tokyo to New York, which lures foreign companies to prefer the country as a production and export hub, the minister noted.

Almost all of the recent regional crises, geopolitical tensions and hot conflicts took place in the immediate vicinity of Türkiye, and the negative outlook deepened even further with the earthquakes in February last year, Bolat said.

“No matter how unfavorable the situation is, Türkiye's sole aim is to protect and further develop its economic and commercial gains,” he stated, adding that the growth figures reveal the success in this regard.

In 1980, Türkiye’s national income was $67.5 billion with only 1,000 exporting companies and $2.9 billion in export revenues, the minister recalled.

“As of the first nine months of 2023, our national income exceeded $1 trillion and hopefully we closed last year with $1.1 trillion of GDP. We managed to become a country with a per capita income of $12,521 with 140,000 exporting companies in 2023,” he said.