Erdogan calls for expanded trade ties with Muslim world

Turkey will see robust growth in 2013 as it diversifies its export markets and boosts trade ties with fellow Muslim nations, declared Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in an opening address to the International Business Forum (IBF) on Thursday. The business meet, which was sponsored by the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen's Association (MUSIAD) and saw over 5,000 businesspeople crowd into an expansive convention center in the Istanbul suburb of Yesilkoy, seeks to boost cross-country ties between Turkish firms and their counterparts in 83 other nations. It also served as a pulpit for the prime minister to outline his ambitious plans for Turkish growth in the coming years, and saw Erdogan predict that the Turkish economy would see the return of an economic boom after a modest projected growth of 3 percent this year. Erdogan spoke above the bustle of the convention floor to declare that the central bank would raise its $27.5 billion in credit reserves "to $1 trillion by 2023," the latest of the minister's economic goals for that year, when the country will celebrate its first centennial. The prime minister might have been encouraged by positive news regarding the country's energy-imports-driven current account deficit (CAD), which Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan announced on the IBF convention floor had fallen by $18.1 billion to stand at $36 billion between January and August of this year. That drop has been driven by strong manufacturing exports, which helped drop the foreign trade deficit by 21.2 percent from a total of $71.8 billion to $56.6 billion over the last eight months. The convention, which one advert hailed as "a meeting of the Islamic commercial world," also served as a call to greater integration of economies in the Middle East, with the prime minister declaring that Turkey's strong performance amid a global recession could serve as a model to other nations. "We need to show the way out of the [economic] woes that Muslims around the world are experiencing," he said, addressing the conference's Turkish business representatives. Erdogan in turn called on participants to increase integration between Turkey and other developing nations. That call, however, has already been well heeded by the Turkish business world, with MUSIAD chief Nail Olpak noting that a once Europe-dependent Turkish economy has rapidly expanded into growth markets elsewhere. "In 2012, the Turkish trade mix changed. In the year's first eight months, exports to Europe shrank 8.2 percent, while our trade with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation [OIC] grew by 32 percent. While our trade [with the OIC] made up 11 percent of exports in 2000, it has reached a level of 23 percent in 2012," he was quoted by the Cihan news agency as saying. A report by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) in September confirms the growing importance of the Middle East for Turkish exports, with the institute's August export figures showing that trade with the UAE rose sevenfold in the last 12 months to reach $2.2 billion, upsetting Germany's traditional position as Turkey's largest trading partner. While Germany took second place on the list, Iraq registered as Turkey's third-largest export market. Olpak nevertheless said that future growth would rest on the continued growth of new markets, telling conference participants that "much can still be done to increase the potential of cross-border commerce." Olpak also suggested that increasing the strength of Turkish ties with the rest of the Islamic world would help developing nations -- particularly struggling Arab Spring states -- increase international trade and jumpstart stagnating economies. "Our aim is to take investors and entrepreneurs from around the Islamic world to [industrial centers] Kocaeli, Kayseri and Konya, and help them build contacts with the business communities there," said Olpak of the conference's aim.