Some Production and Export Data on Turkey’s Chemical Industry

A report, titled “The Chemicals Industry in Turkey”, from the Investment Support and Promotion Agency of Turkey (ISPA) and Deloitte, provides some useful production and export data on Turkey’s chemical industry.  Click here to read the report (PDF file).

According to the report, in 2012, the Turkey chemical industry produced $44 billion worth of chemicals and exported $20 billion, or approximately 45% of the amount produced.  This 45% export amount is surprisingly high, and shows that Turkey’s long-term goal of increasing its chemical exports is being successful.  Over the last several years, both Turkey’s chemical production and export amounts have increased, on average, at around a compound annual growth rate of 9%.

The report also provides production, export, and import data amounts for six chemical sub-groups: paints; fertilizers; personal care; plastics; rubber; and inorganics.  In analyzing this data, some interesting conclusions are reached.  First, for all six sub-groups, imports exceed exports, but much more so for the paints, fertilizers, and plastics sub-groups.  The personal care, rubber, and inorganics sub-groups have exports values much closer to imports.  This suggests to me that products in these three sub-groups (personal care, rubber, and inorganics) do better as exports than products in the other three sub-groups (paints, fertilizers, and plastics).

Another interesting conclusion that the data suggests is that Turkey imports a substantial proportion of its chemicals from countries with well-developed chemical industries, e.g. Germany, Italy, and Russia, whereas a more substantial portion of its exports go to neighboring countries with less-developed chemical industries, such as Iraq, Egypt, and Iran.  An exception to this conclusion is the rubber and inorganics exports, where most of the exports go to more-developed countries.   That Turkey has two huge international companies, Goodyear and Pirelli, producing tires and that Turkey is very rich in mineral resources, such as boron salts, probably account for the demand for Turkey's rubber and inorganics products by more developed countries.

Another interesting conclusion from the analysis of data in the ISPA/Deloitte report is that in 2011 the price of a gallon of Turkey-produced paint (aqueous; non-aqueous; and other paints) was about $4.75 (assuming one gallon of paint weighs about 9 pounds).  By comparison, from the United States Census Bureau, the 2011 price in the United States of a gallon of architecture coating paint was about $15.25.  (Click here to go to the US Census Bureau data.)

Please email me if you are interested in more about the above or what might be available on chemical production, import, and export data for other countries.