On Monday at this column I reached the conclusion that export movements during the 2001 crisis and the global crisis were quite different. In the 2001 crisis real exports of goods and services did not fall down. However, exports, which recently started to recover, dropped significantly following the burst of the global crisis. I should also remind that despite the mentioned recovery export volume still remains below the peak level before the crisis.

Movements in export volume will be one of the main determinants of the pace of economic growth. Almost 50 percent of export of goods and services are directed to the European Union (EU) markets. Estimates indicate that EU will recover slowly. It is evident that this is an unfavorable development for Turkey's exports. In addition, problems facing some EU countries including Greece, Ireland, Spain, Italy, and Portugal are likely to slowdown EU's growth. In that case a change in the destination of exports away from the EU countries will be something desirable. So, what does the recent data tell us in this respect?

Table 1 gives information about the developments in exports to leading export markets of Turkey. In order to reflect the importance of certain regions for Turkey's exports the table gives at the bottom the share of exports to specific regions in total exports of Turkey. Other values give the percentage increase in exports in first quarter in comparison with the same period in the year before. The rate of increase for February 2010 is obtained from the totals for the first three months.

Another point to take into account is that the pace of annual increases should be net f the volatility in Euro-Dollar exchange rates. Therefore, I assumed that all of Turkey's exports to the EU were in Euro terms and I converted the values in dollar terms for Turkey's exports to the EU to Euro terms. And the annual rates of increase in exports for other regions were derived from export figures in dollar terms.

The result obtained from this simple calculation is that considering the first nine months of 2009 exports to all regions given in the table but one dropped. Exports to the North Africa increased despite the crisis. On the basis of individual countries, this phenomenon mainly applies for Egypt and Libya. We can also add Algeria to the list to a certain extent. Thus, it appears that there is no radical change in the diversity of Turkey's export markets yet. Let us see how this situation will change.

Table 1. Annual rate of increase in exports over the last three months (%)

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 22.04.2010