Türkiye Exporters Assembly Raises Export Bar To 402 Billion Dollars For 2024

Mustafa Gültepe, Chairman of TİM, stated that they aim to export $267 billion worth of goods and $135 billion worth of services in 2024 and said, "We will continue to keep our alternative and potential markets on our radar, both far and near. We will focus mainly on large markets with high import potential."

Türkiye Exporters Assembly (TİM) has created a roadmap for the export of goods and services with a total value of $402 billion in 2024. Aiming to start the second century of the Republic with another record, TİM will focus mainly on major markets such as the US, China and India in 2024.Meeting with economic journalists, TİM Chairman Mustafa Gültepe made evaluations about Türkiye's 2023 exports, 2024 expectations and developments in global trade. Gültepe reported that Türkiye exported 255.8 billion dollars in 2023 and increased its share of global exports from 1.02 percent to 1.06 percent. Emphasizing that automotive is the export champion with $35 billion, Mustafa Gültepe reminded that chemicals ranked second with $30.5 billion and apparel ranked third with $19.2 billion. Stating that the success achieved despite the contraction in markets and the loss of competitiveness of some sectors due to high costs in Türkiye is significant, Gültepe said:

WE INCREASED OUR EXPORTS TO 113 COUNTRIES AND BROKE RECORDS IN 66 COUNTRIES

“Global trade contracted by 2 trillion dollars last year. In a period of declining demand, our labor-intensive sectors  struggled to maintain prices due to high costs. Earthquakes, regional wars and conflicts also had a negative impact on our trade. To compensate for our losses, we turned to alternative markets. We organized the highest number of delegations in our history. We organized a total of 222 procurement and trade delegations. In 2023, weadded 18 thousand more companies to our export family. We reached 120 thousand in the total number of exporter companies and the highest export value in 10 sectors. We exceeded the $1 billion export threshold in 23 sectors. The three countries we exported the most were Germany, the US and Iraq. While increasing our exports to 113 countries, we broke export records in 66 countries. We increased the number of countries we exported over 1 billion dollars to 50. Our kilogram export unit value was 1.57 dollars.

AUTOMOTIVE, OUR LEADING EXPORT SECTOR, LOST MARKET SHARE IN 42 COUNTRIES

We have 27 export sectors. In 2023, exports declined in 13 of these sectors, including chemicals, apparel, steel, and iron. Global demand decreased in 12 of these 13 sectors. However, in seven sectors, Türkiye's exports declined more than the decline in global demand. The table shows us that we are losing markets in these sectors. For example, automotive, our largest export sector, lost markets in 42 countries last year. Apparel, our third largest export sector, lost markets in 39 countries, while steel, our fifth largest sector, lost markets in 43 countries. Despite the loss of markets, the export figures that we have achieved in 2023 take on a greater significance."

Explaining that 41 percent of total exports were made to European Union (EU) countries last year and the rate exceeded 56 percent with other European countries, Gültepe continued as follows:

WE HAVE PLANNED OUR ROADMAP AS TÜRKİYE EXPORTERS ASSEMBLY

"When we add the Middle East and North America, we reach 80 percent. This table shows us one thing. We will keep our alternative and potential markets on our radar again, far and near. However, we will focus mainly on large markets with high import potential. From a conjunctural point of view, we know that our task will not be any easier than in 2023, as a recovery of the global economy is not expected before the second half of the year. The World Bank has lowered its global growth forecast for 2024 to 2.4 percent. Developed economies are expected to grow by only 1.2 percent. The limited growth anticipated in global trade will, of course, have some negative impact on us. As was the case last year, some of our sectors will struggle to maintain prices due to high costs, which will make it difficult to compete with other countries.

In the delegates' workshop we organized with the participation of 27 sectors, we defined our roadmap by considering all scenarios. In 2024, we will focus mainly on large markets such as the US, China and India. We will organize five trade delegations to the US, three to China and two to India. The Medium Term Program (MTP) calls for $267 billion in merchandise exports in 2024. Adding our $135 billion services export target, we have raised the bar to $402 billion this year. In the projections we made with our 27 sectors at our TİM Delegates' Workshop, we saw that we can easily reach this target. On the other hand, we believe that we can reach $200 billion in services exports in addition to the $375 billion in goods exports targeted for 2028 in the 12th Development Plan."

Mustafa Gültepe, Chairman of TİM, reminded that they started the second century of the Republic with the goal of making Türkiye one of the top 10 countries in exports, and added that they are working towards this goal step by step.