Turkey's annual e-trade 'up 50 percent last 3 years'

By Aysenur Saglam and Mustafa Calkaya

ANKARA

Turkey’s Internet trade has increased by an average of 50 percent a year over the last three years, Customs and Trade Minister Bulent Tufenkci said Tuesday.

“The volume of the payments via bank cards for Internet shopping reached to 45 billion Turkish liras ($14.6 billion) in January to August of this year,” he told an e-Trade Sector Assembly Meeting held by the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB).

Remarking on the contribution the online sector had made to global economic growth, Tufenkci said collaboration between the public and private sector was “essential to utilize opportunities.”

However, online trading still only accounted for 2 percent of the retail sector, TOBB head Rifat Hisarciklioglu said.

“Online retail’s share is over 10 percent in the developed countries,” he added. “We can rapidly catch them as the figures of Internet penetration and smart phone possession in Turkey are similar to Western countries' ratios.”

Hisarciklioglu said confidence in online trade was still low in Turkey. “The interpersonal trust ratio is 8 percent in Turkey while it is 37 percent in the United States,” he said. “This mistrust is an obstacle to the e-trade growth.”