Türkiye Set a New Export Record in 2025 With $273.4 Billion
The 2025 export figures were announced at a meeting in Istanbul attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Once again, the automotive sector made the largest contribution to last year's $273.4 billion in exports, securing its place as the export champion with $41.5 billion, while chemicals ranked second with $31.9 billion, and electrical-electronics third with $17.7 billion.
Chairman of the Türkiye Exporters Assembly, Mustafa Gültepe: For our sectors struggling with competitiveness, we expect the employment support to be increased to 6,000 lira, the minimum wage support to 2,500 lira, and the introduction of financial packages that will ensure our exporters' access to long-term, low-interest credit.
Despite the competitiveness challenges faced by labor-intensive sectors and the protectionist measures in global markets, Türkiye's upward export trajectory continued in 2025. Exports rose to $273.4 billion in 2025, marking a 4.5 percent increase over 2024. Thus, annual exports maintained an uninterrupted growth trend for the fifth consecutive year since 2021.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan unveiled the 2025 export data at the meeting, which was also attended by Minister of Trade Prof. Dr. Ömer Bolat, Minister of Industry and Technology Mehmet Fatih Kacır, and Minister of Agriculture and Forestry İbrahim Yumaklı.
In December, exports surged by 12.8 percent, reaching $26.4 billion, the highest monthly value on record. On an annual basis, exports climbed by 4.5 percent to surpass $273.4 billion.
“We must transform investment, production, employment, and exports into the driving force of the economy”
Hosting the meeting, Chairman of the Türkiye Exporters Assembly (TİM) Mustafa Gültepe emphasized in his address that 2025 was a challenging year for exporters. Highlighting the particular difficulty in broadening the export base due to the loss of competitiveness in labor-intensive sectors, Gültepe continued:
“In an era when competition has intensified and protectionist barriers are rising ever higher, we have chosen not to wait but to fight. As Mevlana said, while we stood firm with one foot on the ground, we traversed the world with the other. We brought our exporters together with thousands of buyers through 206 trade and procurement delegations and 401 fair participations in 76 countries. We covered 2.5 million kilometers. Nearly 13,000 new companies joined our export family. Eight of our sectors and 27 of our cities achieved their highest annual exports to date.
We reached record annual export values in 65 countries. Under the leadership of our President, we surpassed the $390 billion target set for goods and services exports in 2025. Every single member of our 27 sectors, 61 exporters' unions, and our large export family has contributed to this proud achievement. I hereby extend my sincere thanks to each of them. Yet, our long-term goal is to position Türkiye among the world's top 10 exporting countries. To achieve this, we must accelerate further and ensure that our exports grow by double digits every year. In short, we must once again make investment, production, employment, and exports the driving forces of our economy.”
“Many sectors are struggling with competitiveness due to high production costs”
Mustafa Gültepe underscored that Türkiye is the foremost production hub in its region and has distinguished itself as a brand in manufacturing. He highlighted that proximity to a major market such as Europe is a significant advantage for Türkiye, and continued:
“Although we serve as a nearby supply center for Europe, many of our sectors struggle with competitiveness due to high production costs. In essence, we face pricing challenges.
If we were 10–15 percent more expensive, customers would still prefer us. However, when this margin grows larger, we fall off the buyer's radar as a country. In this regard, every form of support provided to our exporters is of great importance. For our sectors facing competitiveness challenges, we expect employment support to be raised to 6,000 lira, minimum wage support to 2,500 lira, a review of foreign exchange conversion support for greater effectiveness and efficiency, and the activation of financial packages to ensure our exporters' access to long-term, low-interest credit.”
Mustafa Gültepe concluded by stating that, should exporters' expectations be met, he has no doubt that the 2026 targets for goods and services exports will also be achieved.