Turkey has been looking forward to increasing its trade relations with alternative markets such as Africa, the Middle East and South America, which have incurred only limited or no losses due to their relatively closed and underdeveloped economies. Although accelerated in the last few months, the Turkish businespeople's interest in the African markets is not new.

The trade volume between Turkey and the entire continent has increased threefold in the last three years from $6 billion to $18 billion. In the same period, Turkey's exports to Africa grew even larger than this and soared to $9 billion from $2.5 billion.

Turkey's sales to Africa on the rise despite overall fall in exports

In May 2009 alone, when exports in .jgtm general plummeted 40 percent, sales to Africa rose 30 percent. The Turkish Confederation of business and Industrialists (TUSKON) has a large share in this success story thanks to their exclusive focus on this market, which was crystallized by a series of trade bridge summits bringing thousands of businesspeople from Africa and Turkey together to seek business deals on a common platform.

TUSKON President Rizanur Meral notes that the African continent is still continuing at a growth rate of around 8 percent annually at a time when a many other economies are either in recession or slowdown. "Their growth rate may possibly decline to 5 percent at the worst, but still no recession is expected," he acknowledged. The importance of Africa is gradually increasing on the international economic agenda with every passing day, he added. Finding alternative markets is necessary to reduce inventory, Meral indicated, continuing: "We have noticed that Turkish businesspeople were virtually nonexistent in a geographical land mass, which is 30 million square meters in size, inhabited by a population of over 850 million and which creates $1 trillion of wealth per year. Besides, we have historic and cultural ties with Africa. Considering that these connections may also be utilized to realize the trade potential between us, we have decided to focus on this huge market." The idea that Turkey needs to diversify its markets rather than depend heavily on Europe was also important in TUSKON's decision, he added.

Africa demands a large product range, stretching from furniture to ready wear. Africans are especially interested in Turkey's high quality products with competitive prices, such as home appliances, home textiles and processed food. Machinery and equipment for food processing is another item that meets a demand of African buyers. Besides iron and steel, electronics and construction materials have a good market on tills continent. Turkey, on the other hand, imports oil, raw materials, gold, minerals and semifinished products from Africa.

He noted that opening production facilities on this continent is also very important in the sense that this will increase purchasing power and the overall business opportunities within. "They lack the financial resources for larger imports since they are not so good at exporting," he stated. "Therefore, it is necessary to open textile manufacturing plants where cotton is abundant, to process their food or to sell furniture to the world by creating workshops and factories near lumber mills.

As a result Turkish companies operating on the continent will be able to obtain more value added," he said.