In the first quarter of the year, the exports of the jewelery industry increased by 31.1% compared to the same period of the previous year and amounted to $1 billion 683 million.
According to the information compiled from the data of the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM), Turkiye’s exports increased by 4.4% last month compared to the same period of 2022 and reached $23.6 billion.
The export of the jewelery industry was $1 billion 683 million in the first 3 months of the year. In addition, the sector’s exports in March increased by 70.3% compared to the same period of the previous year and amounted to $740.2 million. The share of the sector in exports in March was 3.1%.
In the first quarter of the year, the jewelery industry exported the most to the UAE with $371.6 million. The UAE was followed by Switzerland with $280.6 million, the USA with $223.1 million and Hong Kong with $144.7 million. Other countries with the highest exports were Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Israel and Germany.
In the said period, the city that made the most exports in the sector was Istanbul with $1.5 billion. Istanbul was followed by Corum, Samsun and Ankara.
Making a statement on the subject, Jewelery Exporters’ Association (MIB) President Burak Yakin stated that they are pleased with the first quarter export figures and they aim for better, “Our export figures so far show that we will meet or even exceed our annual targets. Of course, our desire is to do much more than the $7-7.5 billion export we envisaged. Of course, the momentum will increase with the reflection of the national and international activities in the first three months to these figures.”
“Export awareness is developing, our new companies are starting to join us as exporters”
Noting that they are working on a multi-layered basis to achieve their export targets, Yakin said, “First of all, we had some support from the government so that jewelery exporters could be more competitive in global markets. Our government and bureaucrats, especially DIR, gave the necessary support. We said we would increase the number of exporters, so we opened a support office in Kuyumcukent. Now we have started to export the workshops that make contract manufacturing.
Export awareness is developing, new companies are starting to join us as exporters. We organize procurement committee events. Antalya has been very successful this year. We went to Mexico. Panama, Philippines and Singapore, which we call distant countries, are important destinations for us. We are planning to make a trade delegation to these countries for our goals. At the first stage, we are working on a delegation that will bring together our Turkish jewelery companies and foreign buyers in Panama.”
Yakin stated that 511 companies and 1016 people from 63 countries participated in the Antalya procurement committee event this year.
“Besides, we participate in the biggest fairs abroad nationally. We show the biggest national participation in the world’s largest fairs such as Hong Kong in March, June and September, Miami in March and October, and Las Vegas in June. We have the Istanbul Jewelery Fair, it is growing. It is an effective fair.
Although there were cancellations due to the earthquake this year, we had 980 participants from 628 companies in our procurement committee organization. Due to the approach of Ramadan, Arab participation was almost non-existent. On the one hand, we expanded the fair from 5 halls to 7 halls, it was a much higher quality and efficient fair. We focus on the quality as well as the quantity of the fair. We are making our cooperation more effective with international business organizations such as ASEAN and CIBJO, making our industry stronger in the international sense.”
“We need to do serious work on Africa”
Emphasizing that jewelery exports should be evaluated in several categories, close said, “One of them is our traditional markets. Middle Eastern countries, Russia and Ukraine, which were adversely affected by the war, are among our traditional markets. Countries such as European countries, USA and Hong Kong are among the traditional markets. We also have new markets. South American countries, especially Panama, Mexico and Brazil, have significant potential.
The US and Canadian markets are always open to development. In the first place, we will organize a trip to Panama and go with our companies. ASEAN studies have been going on for years. There are the Philippines, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, of course. There are African countries that buy mostly through BEA. We also need to do serious work on Africa. These people can come to our country directly and declare 3 kilograms of gold and do the shopping directly from our country. In this way, it will also contribute to the economy of our country.”
Pointing out that jewelery exports are a sector where Turkiye is competitive on a global scale and will be even more so, Mr. Yakin continued his words as follows:
“We are very strong in jewelery exports. We need to be even stronger and present our companies and products with high brand value to the market. For this, we are trying to gain qualified workforce in the sector. Young people can enter this sector, trainings continue uninterruptedly.
Hard-working, successful young people are ahead. Jewelery exports have the capacity to create qualified employment. There are serious opportunities ahead of us, especially in the export of jewelery made of precious stones such as diamonds. It is possible to increase this export item of $200 million to over $2 billion. We have very special works for this. Turkiye will achieve successes around the world.”
Source: Trthaber / Prepared by Irem Yildiz