The reason Turkish exports are rising
Following agreements between Turkey and the Balkan-area states, authorities have noticed a significant increase in export volumes in the first five months of 2018.
Turkish exports to Balkan countries increased by 22% from January to May of this year, amounting to somewhere around 4 billion USD (3.45 billion EUR) for the Euro-Asian country. The largest increase in percentages could be seen in Croatia, with 47% more cargo destined for the Croats. On the other hand, exports to Bulgaria rose by only 3.7%, but it’s still significant after putting the actual monetary value into perspective.
Many of the country’s exports, data shows, went to Bulgaria, with total goods worth around 1.1 billion USD (950 million EUR). Greece and Slovenia followed, with exports worth 839 and 587 million USD (724.2 and 506.6 million EUR) respectively, while Serbia benefited from 367 million USD (316.7 million EUR) worth of commercial goods.
‘Balkan countries, especially Serbia, have made great efforts to attract Turkish investments in recent years. Developing Turkish-Serbian political relations has also helped’, according to Gozde Kilic-Yasin, an expert on Turkey-Balkan relations in Ankara, who reported his insight to the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), in Belgrad (Serbia).
The same experts went on to explain that ‘these figures are the results of increasing political relations between governments and several trade agreements between Turkey and the region, which aimed to increase trade volume, but Turkey should have reached these figures long ago’.
On the other hand, the country’s fall of its national currency meant Turkish products became cheaper to buy, which encouraged the acquisition of larger cargo volumes.
Turkey is responsible for multiple tons of cargo exports to such countries as Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, Romania and Serbia, with Slovakia, Greece and Slovenia added to the list.
