Turkey's machinery exports in January-August top $15B

ANKARA

Turkey made $15 billion worth of machinery exports in the first eight months of 2021, up 32.5% on a yearly basis, a sector group said on Monday.

"Developed countries have had difficulty catching up with the 2019 machinery export figures," said Kutlu Karavelioglu, head of the Machinery Exporters' Association.

This comes despite serious price rises due to commodity and logistics costs, he explained.

However, he added, Turkey continues to pull ahead of its rivals and boost its share of the world machinery trade.

"Turkey's machinery export figures for the first eight months are 18.4% higher than 2019," he said.

In August, machinery exports to Germany, the US, and the UK approached $500 million compared to the same month last year, he noted, adding that increases in machinery exports to France topped 96% and to Russia topped 63%.

China is the country putting the highest priority on machinery in its global development strategy, he said, but Turkey's machinery exports are close to China’s, on per capita average.

Ties with Russia

Looking at the foreign trade and investment analyses of Turkey and Russia, he said we can see that the machinery sector has a special role in the growth of bilateral ties.

"Machinery production in Turkey is growing 1.5 times faster than general manufacturing industry production," he underlined, adding that the country's machinery manufacturers meet the rising needs of industrialists in Turkey, as well as making up for the shortcomings of other countries whose machinery production has been weakened.