Sitting at the crossroads between East and West, Turkey (officially Türkiye) has been a global nexus for trade for centuries: it was a capital in both the Roman and Byzantine empires and a key post on the Silk Road trade route between Europe and Asia. Turkey borders eight countries, and the iconic city of Istanbul sits astride the Bosphorus, one of the busiest shipping channels in the world. With a population of 85 million and a median age of 33, Turkey’s dynamic economy is growing rapidly, leading to increased demand for innovative goods and services.
Turkey is celebrating 100 years of its Republic in October this year, and the country is swiftly becoming a manufacturing powerhouse for Europe, Asia and Africa. The country is recovering after recent challenges including the devastating earthquake which struck this year in the southeastern part of the country.
An increasing demand for innovative goods and services puts UK businesses in a great place to succeed
Three British businesses making a success in Turkey
Turkey is a manufacturing powerhouse, creating goods destined for Europe, Asia and Africa. Manufacturers in the country are increasingly embracing the latest digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics. For UK companies, this presents a major opportunity.
Half of Turkish manufacturers are currently investing in ‘Industry 4.0’ technologies (also known as ‘smart factory’ technology) which add connectivity and automation to manufacturing processes, such as via ‘digital twin’ technology, and a further 30 per cent plan to invest within five years, according to a report by the Turkish Informatics Foundation.
One British company which is succeeding in the hi-tech sector in Turkey is sustainable tech pioneer ABI Electronics, which exports equipment designed to extend the life of circuit boards, which are crucial to everything from rail transport to renewable energy.
In Turkey, sectors from air travel to rail are embracing the approach of repairing circuit boards in everything from trains to wind turbines, with help from ABI Electronics’ technology, rather than throwing away faulty circuit boards and replacing them with new ones.
Turkey’s population is growing by a million people a year, having grown from just under 25 million in 1960 to 85 million in 2021. With the country’s tech sector thriving, there’s never been higher demand for international education.
This is leading to opportunities for UK businesses in the education sector, such as UniHouse. Manchester-based healthcare publisher UniHouse exports healthcare training materials to Turkey’s Ministry of Health and Acibadem Hospitals in the country.
The company ran a needs analysis in five Turkish cities, using focus groups and interviews to gauge the gap in the market for healthcare and training materials for students and medical professionals in Turkish. UniHouse then worked with more than 30 medical experts to produce materials aimed at professionals in the country.
The company now offers more than 200 books, dozens of courses, workshops and audiovisual courses which are tailored to hospitals, medical centres, universities and medical professionals in the country, and recently signed a deal with the Ministry of Health’s USHAS for a training programme for nurses. The company also partners with Turkey’s two biggest e-commerce apps (Hepsiburada and Trendyol) to boost their sales across the country.
Ben Muziek, learning & capacity building director, says: “Venturing into Türkiye's blossoming market has unfurled a remarkable chapter for UniHouse, allowing us to cultivate meaningful connections and empower the realm of medical education with localised resources, thereby nurturing excellence on an international canvas.”
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UK and Turkey trade in numbers
Rover mission to moon
Rocket mission to moon with hard landing
Iran
Russia
Bulgaria
Georgia
Kyrgyzstan
Key Industries: Mining, agriculture
Kyrgyzstan offers significant potential in terms of expanding its agriculture, electricity production and tourism industry
Uzbekistan
Key Industries: Agriculture, financial services, energy, education
Uzbekistan is riding a wave of market reforms and privatisations which see the country poised to offer major opportunities for foreign investors
Kazakhstan
Key Industries: Oil, gas, minerals, education
Kazakhstan is by far the biggest economy in Central Asia and is an oil, gas and mineral powerhouse, with a very international outlook
Tajikistan
Key Industries: Agriculture, energy
Tajikistan is still strongly dependent on agriculture, but is steadily growing its economy, with the number of people in poverty falling from 83% in 2000 to 26.5% in 2021
Turkmenistan
Key Industries: Agriculture
Turkmenistan has been classified as an upper-middle-income country since 2012 and has some of the largest gas reserves in the world, about 10% of the global total
Turkey is the UK's 18th largest trading partner in the four quarters to end of Q4 2022
Ukraine
Armenia
Iraq
Turkey is rapidly urbanising, with 24 urban centres with populations of more than a million. Trade between the UK and Turkey has reached £23.8 billion up to the end of Q1 2023. According to the OECD Turkey’s economy was one of just two in the G20 which actually grew at the height of the pandemic.
This year the UK and Turkey announced plans to hold future talks on an updated free trade agreement (FTA) to expand upon the existing UK-Turkey FTA, which was rolled over from when the UK left the European Union, and which doesn’t cover key areas of the UK economy including services, digital and data.
The UK is the second-largest services exporter in the world, behind only the U.S. and services contribute 80 per cent of the UK's GDP and an expansion in the trading relationship could offer new and exciting opportunities for UK businesses.
Turkey’s economy is modernising rapidly and is already the 19th largest in the world. By 2050, Turkey is expected to be the 12th-largest economy in the world, and the fourth-largest in Europe, according to HSBC’s report The World in 2050. With support available for UK businesses from the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) and UK Export Finance (UKEF), (the UK government’s export credit agency) now is a great time to start doing business in Turkey.
UNIHOUSE
Key dates in Turkish history
Turkey’s transport and infrastructure sector offers many opportunities for UK businesses, with the country’s push to decarbonise and increase transport links, leading to a growing focus on rail travel.
Turkey’s Ministry of Transport has called for $200bn investment in rail travel over the next three decades, with a goal of increasing the share of journeys by rail to 6.2 per cent from 0.96 per cent.
This is already offering abundant opportunities for UK businesses, with Istanbul poised to spend up to $6 billion on renewed transport infrastructure, and new high-speed railway lines offering multiple opportunities.
UK Export Finance (UKEF), the UK government’s export credit agency, underwrote a £680m loan to support construction of one major high-speed electric railway project between Mersin and Gaziantep in southern Turkey.
The financing which this releases from J.P. Morgan, ING Bank and BNP Paribas will allow Turkish company Rönesans Holding to complete the electrification and construction project on behalf of the Turkish Ministry of Transport.
This is something which will create new, multimillion-pound export contract opportunities for the UK’s infrastructure, engineering and project management sectors as UK Export Finance backed the project on the condition that UK firms supplied to the project. What’s more, this also heralds future opportunities for UK exporters with Rönesans Holding – one of Europe’s 10 largest construction companies – as the group uses the high-speed rail project to build its wider relationships with the UK supply chain.
Infrastructure
The Turkish government has prioritised clean energy, and is focusing on solar and nuclear. Turkey ratified the Paris Agreement in 2021 and has set an ambitious target to achieve net zero emissions by 2053. Turkey is expected to invest more than $10 billion in renewable energy by the end of 2023, and is Europe’s sixth-largest energy market.
The UK solar sector’s close involvement with Turkey's largest solar facility – equivalent to 4,600 football pitches in size – speaks to the wealth of opportunities awaiting UK companies in the country’s burgeoning renewables sector. Having officially opened in May, Kalyon Enerji’s 1.35 gigawatt solar facility in Karapinar, is already delivering clean electricity and will power up to two million Turkish households when it reaches full operational capacity.
Following the UK’s COP26 commitment to level up support for international climate action UK Export Finance (UKEF) backed the solar project with a £217m guarantee, with the requirement of UK firms being actively involved.
Kenan Poleo, Consul General and Trade Commissioner for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, says that UK expertise in the renewables sector is in high demand in Turkey, “With its goal to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2053, the country has moved forward with a range of renewable energy projects. Turkey’s climate offers good solar potential, especially in south eastern Anatolia and Mediterranean regions, and there is a clear and growing demand for UK expertise, where we are seen as a global leader. With UK Export Finance opening doors for UK businesses, now is a great time to explore doing business here.”
Turkey and energy in numbers
GWh
Turkish astronaut on International Space Station
2023
2023
2028/29
£23.8 bn
total trade in goods and services between the UK and Turkey up to the end of Q1 2023
£9.1bn
total UK exports to Turkey in the four quarters to the end of Q1 2023
5.6%
Turkey’s economic growth in 2022, World Bank
22.1%
or £4.3 billion increase from the four quarters to the end of Q1 2022
1
One million electric cars are forecast to be on Turkish roads by 2030
44
Share of total power generation from renewables according to the IEA
10
Turkey's planned expansion of both solar and wind by 2027
50
Turkey’s renewable capacity grew by 50% in the five years to 2021
12
Turkey's first three nuclear plants will offer 12 nuclear reactors
%
%
Reactors
1
One million electric cars are forecast to be on Turkish roads by 2030
%
44
Share of total power generation from renewables according to the IEA
10
GWh
Turkey's planned expansion of both solar and wind by 2027
%
50
Turkey’s renewable capacity grew by 50% in the five years to 2021
12
Reactors
Turkey's first three nuclear plants will offer 12 nuclear reactors
M
M
Israel
Cyprus
Jordan
Syria
Turkey
We spoke to three innovative British businesses who are already making their mark in Turkey on what it’s like to do business there.
ABI Electronics
Willian Santos, International Sales Manager at ABI Electronics, says: “We produce technologies that empower technicians to identify the component that is faulty on a circuit board in just a few minutes. Then you can replace just the component and save the entire circuit board from being thrown away.”
The world produces around 54 million tonnes of e-waste every year, according to UN statistics, an amount which is predicted to double by 2050 unless action is taken. Just 10-15 per cent of scrapped circuit boards are recycled, and most end up being crushed, Santos says.
Repairing rather than replacing also helps Turkish organisations to avoid relying on increasingly strained international supply chains which can see replacement components take up to a year to arrive. ABI Electronics have worked with airports, industrial repair organisations, government agencies and rail and energy organisations in Turkey, Santos says.
“Turkish organisations have realised the importance of reducing whole life asset costs by investing in repair,” Santos says. “There’s a consciousness that we need to repair rather than replace.”
He says: “We have also worked with universities to help the country produce the next generation of what we call repair heroes, people who will learn and use our system to repair rather than replace boards.”
Established in 1983, the company launched its ‘Repair don’t waste’ campaign in 2015, and it has become a movement supported by some of the largest companies in the world.
ABI Electronics has been a DBT Export Champion since 2018. "Our relationship with the DBT in Turkey has been hugely beneficial," says Santos. "They have facilitated a lot of contacts, especially in the automotive sector, in the rail industry and energy, sometimes by inviting us to webinars or for seminars, or exhibitions in Turkey. It’s a great way to get to know people. It’s been extremely successful: we’ve been able to generate contracts that wouldn’t have been available to us if it wasn’t for the Department for Business and Trade."
1923
Republic of Turkey is proclaimed
1945
Turkey joins United Nations
1952
Turkey joins Nato
1999
Turkey joins the G20 as a founding member
2021
2021 Turkey ratifies Paris Agreement
One company which is making success in sectors including chemicals, construction and allied industries in Turkey is Thames Side, which manufactures high-quality industrial weighing system components. These are complex components used across high load worksites and include products such as indicators, transmitters and controllers.
The company has over 40 years’ experience in the weighing industry and has exported to Turkey for over a decade. William Morse, Area Sales Manager, says: "Our success story in Turkey is about the power of collaboration. As we make our way into the market, we've embraced the Turkish proverb 'Akıl akıldan üstündür' – two heads are better than one. Partnering with a Turkish automation system supplier, it allowed us to bridge UK innovation and local expertise and integrate our systems to fit their machinery needs."
Thames Side has made its success by building a strong relationship with its trusted partner, BFM Otomasyon, based in Izmir. Their route to market has been to support their partner in integrating Thames Side products into their machinery – primarily by adding precising capability. Together, Thames Side and BFM Otomasyon have supported an average of 15 projects per year, showcasing the opportunities for innovative UK businesses.
The manufacturer now has a deep understanding of the local market, working closely with their distributor, who have become invaluable by expertly integrating Thames Side products into their machinery, offering first-class installation and maintenance services, and skilfully adapting the marketing process through a local cultural lens.
Thames Side
Renewable energy
1 million
electric cars are planned to be on Turkish roads by 2030
Turkey and energy in numbers
$10 BN
Turkey’s investment in renewable energy by the end of 2023
X2
Renewable power capacity is expected to more than double by 2030, from 19.07 GW in 2020 to 49.31 GW by 2030
10 GW
Turkey's planned expansion of both solar and wind by 2027
50%
Turkey’s renewable capacity grew by 50% in the five years to 2021
Success stories