Tarhan Sezgin of the Export Promotion Centre of Turkey (Igeme) highlights the importance of the construction sector to Turkey and the country’s growing building materials exports.

01 September 2009

TURKEY is now a leading exporter of construction services. Its construction sector is a driving force of the country’s economy, with links to about 150 sub-sectors.

Turkey ranks third after the US and China in the list of the world’s largest contracting companies, published by ENR-Engineering News Record, with 23 of its companies listed among the top 225 contracting companies in the world.
Its construction and engineering companies operating both in the home market and abroad support the country’s strong building materials industry. Advanced technology, on-time delivery, quick response, high quality, use of reasonably-priced Turkish labour and production with international standards have enabled the Turkish building materials sector to compete throughout the world.
Turkey is especially competitive in cement, ceramics, many metal products, glass, natural stones, paints and coatings, building hardware, heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC-R) products, and accounts for a significant market share in Europe and the world. Over the past two decades, the building materials industry and construction services sector has shown remarkable growth both in terms of production and export volume due to the dynamism of the country’s economy and the construction industry.
Turkish building materials exports last year were worth $23.5 billion, an increase of 47 per cent compared to 2007. Iron and steel product exports, valued at $14.3 billion, were the largest export group with steel bars, sections and wires ranking first ($10.3 billion) and pipes and pipe fittings, second ($2 million) in value as subcategories.
With an export value of $1.2 billion, insulated cables is another important group, followed by cement ($1.1 billion), plastic-based building materials ($990 million), processed natural stones ($939 million) and aluminium-based building materials ($837 million).
Building materials were exported to about 190 countries last year, with the main export markets being the UAE, Iraq, Russia, the UK and Romania.
About 35 per cent of Turkish building materials exports are destined for the Gulf countries, a figure which has been surging over the past three years. While in 2006 and 2007, exports of the building materials were worth $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion, respectively, in 2008 exports soared to $8.2 billion ­  – a 228 per cent growth within three years.

Link for graph (Distribution of Turkish building):

According to foreign trade statistics provided by the Undersecretariat of Foreign Trade, last year, Turkey’s largest building materials export product to the Gulf region was iron and steel-based building materials ($6.4 billion), accounting for a 78 per cent share of the total. Within this group, with an export value of $6.1 billion, rebar accounted for the lion’s share.
The second largest export commodity was iron and steel-based other building materials ($286 million) with a share of 3.5 per cent of the total. In 2008, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were the main markets in the Gulf region.
Electric cables with an export value of $230 million and with a share of 2.8 per cent was the third largest Turkish building materials export to the Gulf countries. The other important export commodities were cement (2.4 per cent), plastic-based building materials (1.6 per cent), natural stones (1.6 per cent), prefabricated buildings (1.5 per cent), wood-based building materials (1.5 per cent), prefabricated buildings (2 per cent) and Iron and steel pipes and pipe fittings (1.3 per cent).

Link for graph (Turkey's exports to Gulf countries):

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