Turkey exports chemical substances to 216 destinations, including the U.S., Russia, China, Japan, Burundi, Cape Verde, San Marino and Kiribati, and from January to October, chemical substance exports reached $13.3 billion, an increase of 15.6 percent compared to the same period of 2016. The year-end target is $16 billion.

Istanbul Chemicals and Chemical Products Exporters Association (IKMİB) Chairman Murat Akyüz said chemistry affects sectors such as dyes, raw materials, textiles and furniture, and that chemicals are used for everything such as water purification and wrinkle prevention.

Akyüz said the chemicals industry saw a serious increase in exports in the first 10 months of the year, noting that in from January to October, it realized $13.3 billion in exports with an increase of 15.6 percent compared to the same period of 2016. He also reported that their year-end target is $16 billion.

Akyüz recalled that the highest value increase on a monthly basis was achieved in July, at 23.68 percent, compared to the same period last year, and that there were partial declines in April and June.

Akyüz said that in those 10 months, they exported 15.6 billion tons of chemical substances, an increase of 13.5 percent in quantity compared to the same period of the previous year, adding that they reached the highest increase in quantity in March at 32.2 percent.

Akyüz noted that the highest exports in the last 10 months were realized to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with $848 million, followed by Germany with $718 million, the U.S. with $692 million, Iraq with $690 million, Egypt with $573 million, Italy with $493 million, Iran with $424 million and Spain with $403 million.

He added that plastics led the way in chemical exports with $4.4 billion, followed by mineral fuels and mineral oils and products with $3 billion, inorganic chemicals with $1.05 billion and rubber products with $1.03 billion.

Akyüz said the highest export figure was in mineral fuels, mineral oils and products with 6.9 billion tons, followed by inorganic chemicals with 3.7 billion tons and plastic products with 2 billion tons. He said $1.5 billion was realized in imports for the $2.3 billion worth of plastic products exports, which generated the highest income, and that the chemical industry has a current account deficit due to oil and its products, stressing that it is not the right way to address the chemical industry in the country.

Explaining that they conducted a study for high added-value products, Akyüz said the export value per kilogram in the chemicals industry is $13 for pharmaceutical products, $4.67 for rubber products and $3.78 for volatile oils.

Akyüz said that they will close this year with exports of around $16 billion and they aim to reach $18 billion next year with an increase of 15 percent.

He said that they will lead to high-tech and value-added product groups from now on and continue their studies in this regard.

Explaining that they will focus on locations Turkish Trade Centers focus on, Akyüz said that they want to speed up their structuring in Africa and concentrate more on markets like North America, the Far East, Vietnam and Cambodia.

"We can produce products at European Union quality with Chinese prices. We are also serious about branding. We run our overseas promotion activities very professionally," he said. "We participate in international fairs with a very high number of companies and introduce our sector."

Noting that the cosmetics industry grew by 10 percent for many years but experienced a decline for the last three, Akyüz said that the problems experienced in Iraq prevented the desired increase in exports.

Akyüz said there are Turkish companies that opened stores with very serious structuring in Britain and Europe by taking advantage of office-store support in the cosmetics industry. "These companies can soon purchase foreign companies abroad. The cosmetics industry is still growing, and this growth will continue," he added.

Akyüz said that Turkish companies respond immediately to purchase requests from abroad after experiencing a little bit of growth, suggesting that sales should not be accepted immediately, but suspended a bit more.

"Eighty percent of the cosmetics industry consists of small firms. If they grow a bit more and merge, they can be sold for much higher figures," Akyüz said. "The amount of cosmetics used per capita is still around one-fifth of what it is in Europe. There's still a lot of distance to cover here."