Ships carry majority of local exports

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

More than half of all Turkish exports, worth $75 billion, were transported by sea in the first six months of 2012, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute, TÜİK.

Nearly 53 percent of all Turkish exports in the first half the year were made by sea, the data show.

In the same period, 33.3 percent of all Turkish exports were made by road, 12.3 percent by air, 0.67 percent by railway, and 0.93 percent by other means.

Turkey’s railway network integration with foreign companies is too weak, said Mehmet Tanyaş, head of the logistics department at Istanbul’s Maltepe University, who also chairs the Logistics Association (Loder).

The use of airfreight for exports increased rapidly in the first half of the year, data say.

Tanyaş said any fall in transport by road would both increase cost savings and help protect nature.