Turkey’s goods exports have risen roughly 8.7-fold over the past 25 years, from $31.3 billion in 2001 to $273.3 billion in 2025, according to figures released by the country’s Trade Ministry marking a quarter-century of what it described as sweeping transformation in Turkish commerce.
Over the same period, the ministry said, services exports grew eightfold, from $15.1 billion to $122.6 billion, lifting Turkey’s share of global services exports from 0.89% to 1.28%.
The country recorded a $63.5 billion services trade surplus, which the ministry said had made a significant contribution to financing the current account deficit.
Combined goods and services exports reached around $396 billion in 2025, giving Turkey what the ministry called an export capacity of roughly $400 billion.
The ministry attributed much of the shift to the TURQUALITY programme, launched in 2004 as what it described as the world’s first state-backed branding scheme, which today includes 411 companies and 443 brands; nearly 19,000 small and medium-sized enterprises have taken part in related export-development projects. Digital business registration through the MERSİS system, meanwhile, now serves more than 2.6 million companies, with active users exceeding 3.6 million.
On export financing, the ministry said state lender Turk Eximbank had expanded from two branches in 2001 to 25 today, alongside seven liaison offices, with capital raised to 200 billion lira. The bank is expected to provide $59 billion in rediscount credit to exporters by the end of 2026, with its support now extended beyond goods exporters to service sectors, e-export entrepreneurs and firms using participation banking. Separately, the Export Development Corporation had guaranteed 255.1 billion lira of a total 291.4 billion lira in exporter loans as of 22 June, the ministry said, with Türkbank set to provide a further 100 billion lira in export rediscount credit by year-end.
The ministry also pointed to modernisation of customs infrastructure, saying 19 land border crossings had been fully renovated, with strategic crossings including Gürbulak, Sarp, Kapıkule and Habur fitted with CCTV, X-ray and licence-plate recognition systems. As of 2026, additional customs duties apply to 4,562 tariff categories, while 280 trade defence measures introduced in the first five months of the year had contributed to a 2% fall in imports of affected products year-on-year — part of what the ministry called a balanced policy of protecting domestic production while growing trade sustainably.
New licensing requirements for second-hand vehicle, property and jewellery trading had brought tens of thousands of businesses into a regulated framework by June, the ministry said, citing 84,912 authorised businesses in second-hand vehicle trading, 80,818 in property, and 15,017 in jewellery.
On consumer protection, the ministry said around 64,190 product batches had been inspected across roughly 59,338 businesses since 2011, with its Unsafe Product Information System recording more than 7.5 million visits. More than 238,000 businesses and 1.85 million products had been examined for excessive price increases, resulting in administrative fines exceeding 1.3 billion lira imposed by the Unfair Pricing Evaluation Board.
The ministry noted that 266 licensed warehouse companies now operate with a combined storage capacity of 14.4 million tonnes, while electronic product certificate trading volume on the Turkish Product Specialisation Exchange has exceeded 425 billion lira since the exchange launched in 2019. On sustainability, it said 166 companies were currently receiving support of up to 50% of consultancy costs, capped at 17.64 million lira over five years, under a scheme aimed at helping exporters adapt to green trade requirements.
Looking ahead, the ministry said its focus would shift from export volume alone toward higher value-added production, stronger Turkish brands, faster digital trade and more competitive manufacturing, framing the past 25 years as part of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “Turkish Century” vision.
