Türkiye's exports posted an all-time high January figure at $19.4 billion (TL 365.04 billion), Trade Minister Mehmet Muş said Thursday.
Outbound shipments rose 10.4% from the same month of last year, Muş told a news conference on Türkiye's preliminary foreign trade data.
Expressing that the export figures are an indicator of the success achieved in a climate of global uncertainty and in an environment where export expectations for Türkiye are falling, Muş said that contrary to expectations, the country continues to excel in industrial production and exports with firm steps.
Pointing out that the political stability achieved in Türkiye is behind these achievements, Muş said: “This political stability has opened the horizon for our exporters with policies that pave the way for exports and our exporters have delivered Turkish goods to large geographies of the world.”
“We are making great efforts to increase the range of our exports. We will continue our commercial diplomacy activities intensively to find new markets,” he said.
Stating that a difficult period is expected in the global economy in the coming period, Muş said that weak demand has been seen, especially from Europe, which is Türkiye’s largest trading partner and that the trend poses a risk to exports.
Stating that it is important for exporters to turn to alternative markets, Muş said, “First of all, we continue our efforts to ensure that Türkiye is the first choice for the Middle East and Gulf countries, whose incomes and therefore demands are increasing with increasing energy prices.”
“We have accelerated our commercial diplomacy activities with the Middle East countries. While we strive to make our country a production and supply center for Europe, we continue to stand by them in directing our exporters to different markets, especially the Far Countries Strategy,” the minister said.
Emphasizing that they will continue to stand by the exporters with government support this year, as every year, Muş stated that the support of TL 5.2 billion in 2022 has been increased to TL 10.1 billion this year.
Muş stated that the Export Development Joint Stock Company (İGE AŞ), which started its operations in March last year and strengthened its capital structure in August, facilitated access to finance for exporters who have collateral problems.
“IGE AŞ, which is a revolutionary practice in the financing of exports, has provided our exporters with a surety for loans of over TL 21 billion to date. Even though it has been a short time since its establishment, İGE AŞ has become a very important resource for our exporters with its strengthening structure,” he said.
He said he believes it will be much stronger in the coming years and will have a huge structure that will make a greater contribution to the Turkish economy.
Meanwhile, due to surging energy and commodity prices, Turkish imports also jumped 21% year-over-year to $33.7 billion in January, including more than one-quarter of this figure in energy, Muş said.
Türkiye's energy imports amounted to $8.8 billion in January, leaping 238% from a year earlier.
Muş underlined that high gold demand also made a significant contribution to Türkiye's total imports, as the country paid $5.1 billion for the precious metal.
The country's foreign trade deficit reached $14.3 billion in January.
