Turkey's oil refinery becomes local export champion of year

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Turkish Petroleum Refineries Corporation, Tüpraş, which has been named as the top exporter of last year, completes the assembly of its new reactor. The company has been recently undergoing thorough a renewal process. DHA photo

Turkish Petroleum Refineries Corporation (Tüpraş) ranked as to top exporter of 2012 with $5.42 billion of exports, according to a survey by the Turkish Exporters’ Assembly (TİM).

It was followed by two automotive companies: Ford with $3.2 billion in exports and Renault with $3.15 billion. These three companies have maintained their leadership positions from the year before.

More than 57.9 percent of Turkey’s $152.5 billion of exports was completed by the top 1,000 exporters – over $88.2 billion in exports – in 2012, TİM said. The top 500 companies completed 85.4 percent of that $88.2 billion of exports, while 14.6 percent was conducted by the second biggest 500 Turkish exporters. Nearly half of the country’s total exports was done by the top 500.

Germany became the biggest market of the top 1,000 Turkish exporters in 2012 with its share of 9.8 percent of total exports. Germany was followed by Britain with 6.8 percent, Iraq with 6.5 percent and Italy with 5.4 percent.

A total of 464 of the top 1,000 exporters are based in Istanbul. Istanbul is followed by the southeastern city of Gaziantep with 71 companies and the Aegean city of İzmir with 61 companies.

 “The exports by the top 1,000 Turkish companies have increased by 1 percent compared to last year’s figures. Each of the top 12 companies exported goods valued at more than $1 billion,” Mehmet Büyükekşi, president of TİM, said yesterday. He added that they aimed to increase the number of the companies exceeding $1 billion in exports from 12 to 50 in the next decade.

Industrial goods tops

Industrial goods constituted 86.6 percent of the exported goods in 2012, followed by agricultural goods with 11.6 percent and mining products with 1.8 percent, according to the TİM survey. The biggest share was owned by the automotive industry, which made 19.7 percent of Turkey’s exports in 2012.

The average profitability of the top 1,000 exporters is 1 percent above the 2011 average but lower than the 2010 and 2009 averages. While the top 1,000 exporters had provided employment to 381,000 people in 2011, they provided jobs to 442,000 people by creating 61,000 new jobs in 2012.