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2025 Export Action Plan

2025 Export Action Plan

Turkey implemented a new foreign trade strategy on January 24, 1980, with the “January 24 Decisions” to overcome the economic instability. The decision aimed to take economic measures such as limiting public expenditures, lowering wages, and free exchange rate to eliminate the reasons such as decreasing production and black market. With the January 24th decisions, the import substitution growth strategy implemented in the pre-1980 period was abandoned, and an open growth strategy was put into practice. The growth strategy is mainly aimed at increasing productivity and improving the competitiveness of the economy. Within this framework, steps were taken towards the institutionalization of the market economy.

Trade Deficit

This change in strategy led to sudden changes in the volume of foreign trade, but at the same time, the country was confronted with a phenomenon called “fictitious exports”. It is also true that there has been a positive change in terms of foreign trade over time. This is evident when we look at our imports and exports between 1980 and 2023.

 

An increase in foreign trade is of course important, but what is more important is a sustainable foreign trade structure. In other words, balanced imports and exports are important for the sustainability of foreign trade. If the value obtained from exports does not cover imports, a foreign trade deficit occurs, in which case financing imports becomes a problem. When we look at the course of foreign trade since the January 24th decisions, we see that the ratio of exports to imports improved in the first 8 years, but then stagnated. For more than 40 years, the ratio of exports to imports has been around 65-70%. This ratio proves that we have a chronic problem in financing imports. The healthiest solution to this chronic problem is to increase exports to a level that will cover imports.

The most important tool to increase exports is export promotion. However, it is not possible to encourage exports by providing direct monetary incentives. A subsidy occurs when the exported product is exported at a price lower than the selling price, and the difference is covered by government incentives. When exports are subsidized, the importing country is entitled to tax the subsidized amount. Therefore, any amount given as a monetary refund to the exporter is reflected as an additional tax to the importer. In this case, every direct monetary support paid to exports is reflected in the coffers of the importing country as tax revenue and does not contribute to the competitiveness of the exporter. For these reasons, it is imperative to support exports indirectly rather than through direct monetary subsidies.

Export Action Plan for 2025

Every year, the Ministry of Trade makes an action plan to increase exports. The 2025 Action Plan for Exports was announced by Minister of Trade Ömer Bolat on January 15, 2025[1]. Speaking about the importance of exports for the Turkish economy and that they contribute greatly to the country's economy in terms of investment, production, employment and foreign exchange earnings, Bolat said that for this reason, their red line is to “succeed in increasing exports of goods and services under all circumstances and conditions”. He reminded everyone that the target for 2025 is 390 billion dollars in exports of goods and services. He also stated that 33 billion liras of support was allocated to exporters from the Ministry's budget.

 

The 2025 Action Plan for Exports consists of 77 actions under 7 headings. The titles of these actions are related to the names of the units they are related to. The titles, units, and number of actions are as follows:

AmountActionUnit
22Goods Export Action PlanGeneral Directorate of Export
14Services Export Action PlanDirectorate General for International Service Exports
10Commercial Diplomacy, Multilateral, Regional and Bilateral Relations Action PlanDirectorate General for International Agreements and European Union
13Export Facilitation Activities and Projects at Customs Action PlanGeneral Directorate of Customs
13Turk Eximbank Action Plan on Export FinanceExport Credit Bank of Turkey Inc.
5IGE Inc. Action PlanExport Development Inc.

The Goods Export Action Plan includes support to increase exports, organizing promotional delegations, participation in fairs to promote export products, issuing green passports to exporters, and branding supports.

The Services Export Action Plan includes actions to increase exports in sectors such as overseas events and organizations for service exports, logistics, informatics, overseas contracting services, technical consultancy, cultural services, education, and health tourism.

Commercial Diplomacy, Multilateral, Regional and Bilateral Relations Action Plan includes actions such as negotiating preferential trade and free trade agreements with various countries, holding mixed economic committee meetings with some countries, holding meetings on international trade with some countries, and continuing negotiations with international organizations.

As the name suggests, the Turk Eximbank Action Plan includes actions to finance exports and provide exporters with more favorable financing.

The IGE Inc. Action Plan includes actions regarding the amount of resources offered to exporters within the scope of the support packages implemented on a sectoral basis.

The Customs Export Facilitation Activities and Projects Action Plan mainly includes the simplified customs declaration (BGB) for exports. The BGB is the declaration used in micro-exports made via fast cargo and mail, in other words, within the scope of e-exports. In these declarations, the declaration is made by the postal or fast cargo company called the operator, not the exporter. Therefore, exporters who export on a micro basis are freed from the bureaucracy related to exports. For declarations made in this way in the action plan;

- Transition to a system where it will be sufficient to issue invoices or delivery notes for exports by creating customs direct declarations from e-invoices or e-dispatch notes,

- Elimination of the difficulties experienced in the determination of HS-12,

is to be targeted.

The second action to be emphasized is that the Country Customs Practices Information Portal Project will continue. The Country Customs Practices Information Portal is a document that enables exporters, especially micro-exporters, to be informed about export markets.  With this document, exporters can access the details of customs and foreign trade procedures applicable in countries where exporters export intensively, especially in the identified target markets, and in countries that offer potential for e-export. This information will provide support and guidance to minimize the problems that exporters may encounter in other countries' customs administrations and provide a competitive advantage in target countries.

In conclusion, from a broad perspective, it can be concluded that the Export Action Plan for 2025 does not contain much more than the routine tasks of the Ministry of Trade units.


 

[1] https://ticaret.gov.tr/haberler/ticaret-bakani-bolat-ihracatta-2025-yili-eylem-planini-acikladi