ISTANBUL, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Monday that Türkiye's exports in 2022 reached a record high of 254.2 billion U.S. dollars, registering a year-on-year growth of 12.9 percent.
"Our goal now is to make Türkiye one of the top 10 exporting countries," Erdogan told the Türkiye Exporters Assembly in Istanbul, adding that exports were only 36 billion dollars when the ruling Justice and Development Party came to power 20 years ago.
According to the president, the number of exporting firms grew from 33,523 in 2002 to more than 111,000 in 2022 and the number of cities engaged in exports increased from five to 24 in the same period.
Additionally, exports to the European Union, Türkiye's biggest trading partner, recorded a year-on-year growth of 12 percent in 2022, with the foreign trade surplus reaching over 10 billion U.S. dollars, Erdogan said.
The Turkish leader underscored his country's efforts to conduct an increasing amount of trade in local currency, saying that the volume of foreign trade conducted in Turkish currency had reached 350 billion liras (18.7 billion dollars) in 2022.
Türkiye is facing a number of economic problems that include the sharp depreciation of its currency, which lost nearly 70 percent of its value in 2022, and high inflation rates, which stood at 84.39 percent as of November last year. ■
