Business world eyes $10 billion exports to Saudi Arabia

ISTANBUL

Türkiye’s exports to Saudi Arabia can increase to a total of $10 billion annually with the normalization of relations between the two countries, a leading business representative has said.

“Today, a delegation of 35 businesspeople is coming to Türkiye with [Crown] Prince [Mohammed bin Salman] of Saudi Arabia,” Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEİK) President Nail Olpak said on June 22 at the opening of the board’s new headquarters.

“They are visiting our country after a long time, and businesspeople from the strongest companies are in the delegation. Among them are important names who played a very effective role in the trade between our countries. We had total exports of $7.3 billion to Saudi Arabia, based on the latest figures before the trade stopped. Therefore, we can say that we lost $7 billion due to the problems experienced in the recent period. With the renormalization of relations, we can talk about an export potential of $10 billion dollars to Saudi Arabia. Especially the contracting sector will be very important in the upcoming period,” he added.

A Saudi delegation led by bin Salman held talks in Ankara with Turkish officials on June 22, and the crown prince had a face-to-face meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The two sides discussed “the possibility of developing and diversifying trade and boosting investments and partnerships in various fields,” according to a joint statement released after the talks.

Olpak also stated that Türkiye still has a logistical superiority in the regional sense with the trade it carries out without disrupting the supply chain during the pandemic process, foreseeing that the year will end with $260 billion of exports.

“Germany leads the way in our exports, the United States has moved up to the second place,” he said, adding that African countries have a great potential as export markets.

“Africa is still a very important market,” Opak added. “Africa is still a market hungry for trade, investment and industry. However, the most important issue here is financing. Last month, we hosted the president of the American EXIM bank in Istanbul, who is also the CEO of a major company. The main theme of our meeting was the cooperation between the Turkish business world and the U.S. business world in Africa.”

“The Middle East, North Africa and Turkic Republics are also different markets in terms of exports. We still see a very serious potential for Türkiye. Although the possibility of a positive scenario in the field of foreign investments is difficult in this environment, there may be great developments in the field of contracting abroad.”