The Corona virus pandemic started in Vuhan, the capital of Hubei in China, and took hold of 2020. This pandemic has influenced the whole world and is foreseen to relatively continue this year as well.
Due to this pandemic, the new world, new life styles, different consuming areas, and with its specific markets are going beyond the ordinary. People are trying to continue their lives in digital platforms not in real life anymore. They necessarily follow each other on social media instead of being with each other. Moreover, they do their shopping online, too. The companies, which can not accompany with these developments in the digital world, are facing the threat of being eliminated from the markets. Th ones which have been able to predict this situation are trying to change the crisis to an opportunity by entering digital markets.
Everything that will meet the demands of the customers exceedingly exists in the digital markets. If something isn’t done, our companies will be eliminated and will go bankruptcy disappear from the markets in this endless cycle until the pandemic is over. That is to say, in order our companies to be integrated into this system; they have to make themselves be seen by other people. They will be able to reach more and permanent customers by putting right and reasonable steps forward.
During the pandemic and in the new normal after the pandemic, our members have taken a great responsibility both for our country and our city from the point of export, which is seen as a solution to have a high national income and to provide economic development. Our country has adopted an economic development model based upon export and has been applying such policies. In this path, as the Chamber of Commerce, we have been carrying out very important projects and support in order our memebrs to increase their exports.
In this context, despite the pandemic, the highest rate of export has been put into practice, which is the highest in the history of our Republic, in 2020, in Konya. In March, April and May, in which the pandemic was started to seen and affected our country badly, the export was slightly interrupted. We performed very well in the subsequent months and until the end of the year. We were able to both closed the gap and reached the highest rates in export in the history of our Republic. The secret of this success is the efforts and devoted works of our members in spite of the pandemic. The second reason of our success is the product range of our city. This product range gives us an opportunity to export more countries.
In recent years, Konya has been mentioned as an industrial city in Turkey thanks to its successes in industry. In every fields of industry, the production was represented in export. Records were being broken one by one every month with the export numbers and 2020 was completed as a successful year.
Konya has a total of 2.185.137.036, 74 USD export in 2020. With this export number and its export share in Turkey, Konya has risen to rank 11 from 12 by 1, 40% rate. Turkey has raised its export by 15, 85% rate and Konya has raised its export by 83, 35% rate in the last ten years.
When we look at the number of our exporters yearly, we can see a relatively high increase. In the previous year, we added 251 new exporters and the number reached to 2.668. According to this number, we are at the 6th rank among the cities including the highest number of exporters.
It is seen that we haven’t been able to project this level of participation and density into the export as a city. We are at the 6th rank in terms of companies, but we are at the 11th rank in terms of export numbers. This situation indicates that we need to conduct more market researches and foreign advertise more.
In the last ten years, our export rate has increased by 83, 35%, and our company number has increased by 123, 45%.
Konya has exported to 182 countries and regions in 2020. The most important of these are countries such as Iraq, USA, Germany, Russia and Italy.
Poland and Israel, which are not included in the top ten countries to which we export in 2019, increased their import capacity and ranked among the top ten in 2020. When we look at the weight of countries in our total exports, the first 10 countries attract almost 50% of our exports. In addition, it is seen that last year we exported to countries such as Equatorial Guinea, Dominik and Mayotte.
Our exports, which were realized in 89 sectors in the previous year, were exported to 90 main sectors in 2020. The main sectors are boilers, machinery, parts and components of motor vehicles, cereals, flour, starch, milk preparations, pastry products.
The sectors in which our exports increased the most in 2020 compared to 2019 are weapons and ammunition, boilers, machinery and parts and parts of motor vehicles.
The 2020 import figure of our city is 916,008,615 USD and its foreign trade volume is 3.06 billion dollars. Foreign trade surplus is approximately 1.23 billion dollars. Our city is the 6th province with the highest foreign trade surplus. The ratio of exports to imports is 235%. While Konya has an export surplus in 156 countries among 183 countries and regions to which it exports, it has a foreign trade deficit in only 27 countries. In 2020, the city imported from a total of 117 countries.
The first five countries that we have foreign trade surplus are Iraq, the USA, Germany, Israel and Algeria. The first five countries that we have foreign trade deficit are China, Taiwan, Russian Federation, Japan and Brazil.
Konya has foreign trade surplus with many EU countries including Germany, Belgium, France, Spain and Italy as well as England, the USA and Canada.
Countries such as the USA, Canada, Brazil, Venezuela, Belgium, Belarus, Pakistan, Malaysia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhistan, Ghana and Republic of Cote D'ivoire are seen as potential markets for our city in 2020.
The preditction of 5% growth in the world trade with the expected “deliberately optimism”, it can be foreseen that Konya might provide an increase in export. As the Chamber of commerce, we will continue to cooperate with our industrialists and merchants and lead the way to our exporters in 2021, too.