With “TIM Export Talks” meetings with the ambassadors of our target countries, we evaluate the situation of our target markets during the epidemic and in which products and sectors we will see more opportunities for our country in the post-Covid-19 period.

THE GLOBAL ECONOMY has been facing the biggest crisis after the 1929 Great Economic Depression with the effect of the Covid-19 outbreak. The break in the supply chains that started with the emergence of the epidemic in China, and the epidemic turned into a pandemic, caused a shock to the financial markets and the real economy in a short time. According to the IMF’s global economic outlook report published on April 14, the previous expectation of the institution was revised as 3.3% positive growth, 2020 global growth forecast and 3% shrinkage, while OECD is more pessimistic, predicting that the global economy will shrink by 4.8% in 2020. It is foreseen that the countries of the European Union, where we realize half of our exports, will experience dramatic shrinkage. The expectation that Germany, which is one of our important export markets, shrinks by 7% and Britain by 6.5%, creates pressure on export products at the point of demand. The World Trade Organization maintains its expectation of a 13% contraction in world trade, even in the most optimistic scenario. Even in this environment where a decrease of 40% in world trade is possible, our exporters have shown a very successful performance. Although we started the first two months of 2020 with a record, we experienced a decrease in our exports to the extent we expected after mid-March due to the decreasing global demand and the epidemic, especially in Europe. But we are in a good position in exports from many countries around the world. As of June, we will return to the positive period in our exports and begin to catch the figures before pandemic. In these days when normalization steps are frequent, we continue our work without slowing down through online meetings. The worst days in terms of our export numbers are left behind us; the losses in exports in the last two and a half months started to be compensated by our trade culture, which is resistant to shocks and can quickly adapt to changing conditions. As a result of the normalization steps in our export markets and changes in the global supply chain, our expectations in our export figures are above average.

Our ministries have done the necessary work in order to overcome the obstacles faced by our exporters in this process with effective and coordinated efforts and to get over this process with minimum loss. Even in these difficult days, our customs have worked and we have carried out exports at our borders with maximum precaution. With the opening of the customs gates of Iran and Iraq to trade again, our exports to this region will be an upward trend. In this period, while working to prevent damage to our exports, we are preparing for the post-Covid-19. We are continuing our efforts to hold our trade delegation meetings in a virtual environment in order to ensure that our trade relations, which have been disrupted by the outbreak, are not adversely affected in the coming months. On the other hand, with “TIM Export Talks” meetings with the ambassadors of our target countries, we evaluate the situation of our target markets during the epidemic and in which products and sectors we will see more opportunities for our country in the post-Covid-19 period.

With the end of the outbreak, the global economy is expected to experience a rapid recovery. The IMF expects the global economy to grow 5.8% in 2021. We know that the supply and demand shocks we have experienced consecutively in the Covid-19 period and the loss in our exports in recent months will be compensated quickly and these days will strengthen our exporters in the postCovid-19 period.

With its shock-resistant structure, our country’s business community and especially our exporting companies will adapt quickly to the “new normal” in the post-Covid-19 period. In this adjustment process, our ability to respond quickly to new demands and expectations from the world is important for the future of our exports. By clinching its position as a “Reliable Supplier Port”, Turkey will become the center of supply for countries that will seek new supply centers as a result of the process.

In the post-Covid-19 era, we will start to hear concepts such as clean production and green product certificates in the world. At this point, we should quickly certify our production facilities and companies and decorate the global showcase with other factors that may affect demand, such as “Certified Product” and “Eco-friendly Product” in addition to Turkish product perception.

The epidemic process once again showed our country and the world that all of the strategic products must be produced with domestic and national means or must be provided by a “reliable supplier”. Breakdowns in the supply chain during the outbreak reduced the reliance on the countries from which it was supplied because the products were “relatively cheap”. It was once again demonstrated that the fact that the whole world is dependent on a single factory is not sustainable. Turkey, which makes medical supplies to many countries over the epidemic process, help with masks and disinfectants in the soundness of soft power supply mechanism in this region and directly in the field and reminded the world again in the middle of the epidemic process. We often see the positive reflections that this soft power application may have on our exports in the future and remember these days; will be the work of these steps we take today.