Turkey’s exports show surge, but more slowly

BATMAN/ISTANBUL

The automotive sector topped exports with $1.8 billion in June, while Turkey’s overall exports reached $11.8 billion with a slight increase of 0.6 percent.

Turkey’s exports rose slightly to $11.8 billion in June, a 0.6 percent increase from the same month a year earlier, according to figures revealed by the Turkish Exporters’ Assembly (TİM) during a press meeting attended by Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek and TİM’s president, Mehmet Büyükekşi, in the southeastern province of Batman yesterday.

The export volume reached $74.6 billion in the last six months with a 2.5 percent increase from the same period of the previous year. However, exports rose to $152.8 billion in the last 12 months with a 7.5 percent increase.

Turkey is now $85.3 billion away from its 2013 export target, around $160 billion. “The export increase rate will be single digit in 2013, but we will achieve a $158 billion export value in the framework of the medium-term program,” said Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan in a written statement.

However, Büyükekşi noted that the United States Federal Reserve’s plan, which is to wind down its monetary stimulus, would affect negatively the other economies’ growth performance as world trade might continue to slow down. Fed Chairman Bernanke laid out a strategy last week to roll back the bank’s $85 billion monthly bond purchases on the back of a recovering economy.

TİM’s head said Turkey’s growth, which has been continuing to rise in the last 14 quarters, was dependent on export volume. A reasonable decrease in value of the Turkish Lira might support exports, he said, noting that an excessive volatility in the rate of exchange in the medium term might damage exports.

Büyükekşi announced that TİM had developed a sale operation service “Exchange Rate Put Option” in cooperation with Eximbank in order to protect exporters from unfavorable changes in exchange rates and allow exporters to benefit from favorable movements on the spot. The details will be provided on TİM’s website soon, he added.

Automotive tops

The automotive sector topped the exports with $1.8 billion in June, followed by the ready-wear sector with $1.4 billion and the chemical materials sector with $1.3 billion.

Şimşek stated that the number of products, whose export value was more than 1 billion euro, increased from nine to 30 in the last 10 years as the number of countries exported to rose from eight to 34. “Turkey has increased its exports in terms of content and variety. Despite demand shrinking in the EU countries due to an ongoing economic crisis, we achieved this success,” he said. Turkey’s exports to the EU surged by 5 percent last month.

The export orders, which contracted in May, also revived and grew in June as the Turkish manufacturing sector managed to grow in June, a survey showed yesterday. The manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) stood at 51.2, according to Markit’s PMI for HSBC, released.

After slowing down for four consecutive months, the PMI figures in June recovered only slightly from May data, which was 51.1. A factory production sub-index for Turkey, which indicated stagnation in May by ranking 50, jumped to 52, marking the fastest growth in four months.