A commercial exchange that, before Covid, was close to 18 billion euros in value, according to the ICE’s calculations based on Istat, and which even in 2020, despite the slowdown caused by the pandemic, still had a value of over 15 billion. The relations with Turkey are so valid for the Italian industry. Those relations of “cooperation”, as Prime Minister Mario Draghi defined them, which it is important to safeguard without renouncing to express differences of views and to strongly reaffirm their values and principles.
The Draghi effect on the interchange
It is difficult to say now whether the effect of Draghi’s words, who defined Turkish President Erdogan a “dictator”, will be felt on companies, or whether everything will be resolved in a short time with the weapons of diplomacy. The fact is that there is some concern among entrepreneurs. Turkey is in fact the 12th country in the world ranking of trade with Italy and is among the ten countries in which – again according to Ice estimates – the greatest growth in exports is expected in the next two years.
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The value of exports
The peak of Italian exports to Ankara was recorded in 2017, with over 10 billion euros of made in Italy goods sold in Turkey. In 2018 there was a sharp slowdown (-13.2%), followed by a further decline in 2019 (-4.9%) and in 2020 (-7.4%). Conversely, imports of goods from Turkey to Italy – especially motor vehicles, mineral processing products and textile products – have progressively increased over the last ten years, with a record of 9.45 billion euros reached in 2019, to which it has followed by the collapse of 2020 (-21.2%) strongly influenced by the pandemic.
The most interested sectors
The sectors most affected by trade with Turkey are machinery and equipment (over 1.7 billion euros in exports in 2020), which also saw exports grow by 11.2% in the year of Covid. and boasts an active trade balance of 1.2 billion euros, followed by motor vehicles (over a billion exports in 2020, up 5.3%, but with a negative balance of 970 million), and the chemical industry (918 million in 2020 and a balance of 540 million).
1,500 Italian companies are active
“Italy is Turkey’s fifth trading partner worldwide and second among European countries behind Germany – comments Giovanni Da Pozzo, president of Promos Italia -. The Turkish market is therefore an important outlet for the international business of our companies, particularly in some sectors. Over 1,500 Italian companies are active in the Turkish market, a substantial presence. At the same time, there is a steady growth of Turkish investments in our country. In fact, Italy increasingly represents for Turkey the gateway to the single European market which has about 500 million consumers ”.