Erdoğan: Türkiye facing an operation of sabotage
ANKARA
There is an insidious operation to sabotage Türkiye and Türkiye's interests, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Jan. 2 at an event in the capital Ankara, to announce last year's foreign trade numbers.
Erdoğan addressed a contentious issue involving the recent dispute between Istanbul's football giants and Saudi officials.
The Turkish Super Cup final scheduled to be played between Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe in Riyadh was indefinitely postponed after the clubs refused to take to the pitch and returned home.
The dispute was centered around players wearing jerseys featuring modern Türkiye founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and carrying a banner with his motto, “Peace at home, Peace in the world.”
"We are facing a wave of Islamaphobia and xenophobia. Unfortunately, opposition actors are willingly acting as extras in this dangerous politics of hate," Erdoğan said.
"It is never a coincidence that brotherly countries that stand by us in our difficult times are targeted. There is an insidious operation to sabotage Türkiye and Türkiye's interests. Just as we threw out the dirty scenarios, we will definitely frustrate this game," he added.
Erdoğan has declared that Türkiye's exports for the year 2023 reached a historic high, breaking all previous records by totaling $255.8 billion.
Erdoğan revealed that the export-to-import ratio increased by 0.8 percentage points, reaching 70.7. This marks "a significant improvement from around 50 percent when his administration took office," he said.
The foreign trade deficit decreased by 3.2 percent compared to the previous year, Erdoğan added.
The president noted that the country's service exports amounted to $99.25 billion, contributing to a decline in the current account deficit. He expressed optimism about the ongoing improvement, citing surpluses in the current account during September and October.
In 2002, the country exported $3 billion per month, Erdoğan said, whereas the current average stands at $21.3 billion. Every province contributed to the export success in 2023, with the number of provinces exporting over $1 billion increasing from five to 30. Istanbul secured the top spot among the five highest-exporting provinces, followed by the northwestern cities of Kocaeli, İzmir, Bursa, and Tekirdağ, as announced by the president.
Erdoğan acknowledged the role of EU countries, which ranked first with a total of $104.3 billion in exports, despite challenges such as "the global demand slowdown and issues within the EU."
Türkiye's share of global exports rose to 1.03 percent in the past year, he said, attributing 2.4 points of the 5.5 percent growth rate in 2022 to the contributions of the country's exporters.
