ANKARA: Turkey earned $144 billion in overseas sales in 2015, a decline of 8.7 percent when compared to the export figures of the preceding year, data from a local exporter union showed on Monday.
According to results from the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TİM), exports fell 12 percent in the final month of 2015 over December 2014. The union cited a shrinking global trade volume as a reason for Turkey’s declining exports, adding that the country’s share in global sales grew for the first time to 0.09 percent in 2015.
Turkey also managed to increase its exports to key markets such as the EU and the US, TİM Chairman Mehmet Büyükekşi said at a press conference in Ankara on Monday. The TİM head also stressed that Turkey needs to overcome certain structural problems, including the lack of export products with added value.
Turkey recorded disappointing export figures for much of 2015 as regional trade has been compromised by political instability and multiple ongoing conflicts. A lingering political spat between Ankara and Moscow, for instance, damaged Turkish exporters’ competitiveness in the Russian and surrounding markets. Turkey’s sales to Russia fell by as much as 52 percent between Nov. 24 — when a Turkish F16 downed a Russian jet along the Syrian border — and Jan. 1, Monday’s data revealed.
