Turkey's top 1,000 exporters make $92B exports in 2017

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA (AA) - A thousand Turkish companies made nearly 60 percent -- $92.3 billion -- of all of the country's exports in 2017, according to the Turkish Exporters' Assembly (TIM).

Ford Otosan came at the top of companies with $4.79 billion exports, followed by Toyota Motor Manufacturing Turkey ($4.44 billion) and Tofas Automobile ($3.2 billion), according to the TIM's ranking of "Top 1,000 Export Companies of Turkey" announced on Tuesday.

Five of the first 10 export companies come from the automotive sector -- Ford Otosan, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Turkey, Tofas Automobile, Oyak-Renault and Mercedes-Benz Turk.

The automotive sector's share in the top 1,000 exporters was 27.2 percent ($28.5 billion), followed by textile and steel sectors with 9.7 percent and 9.5 percent, respectively.

The country's most-populous city, Istanbul, led the ranking with 426 exporters.

Top 1,000 companies exports rose by 13.4 percent to reach $92.3 billion in 2017, compared with the previous year.

Ten companies climbed over $1 billion export mark during the year, while the first 500 companies made 50.3 percent of the country's total exports.

"Considering Turkey's potential, 10 companies that made more than $1 billion exports were not enough. Our target is 50 companies for 2023," Mehmet Buyukeksi, chairman of the TIM, said in a press release.

He added, for this target they need to export more value-added products and more investment needs to be made in research and development (R&D), innovation, design and branding.

"Last year, 202 of top 1,000 companies have R&D centers and they spent $6.2 billion on R&D," Buyukeksi said.

A total of 61 percent of top exporters were indigenous companies, the TIM data showed.

Buyukeksi said: "By the end of 2018, we will hit the historical high in exports reaching over $170 billion."

Turkey's share in the world trade was 0.9 percent in 2017, this figure will increase in 2018, he added.