What does Turkey produce and export?

Turkey (Türkiye) sits between two grain and oilseed regions and processes what moves across it. Sunflower is the clearest case: the country grew 4.0% of the world's sunflower oil in 2023 (FAOSTAT), which is not enough for its crushers and refiners, so it bought 6.5% of world sunflower-oil import value in 2024 (CEPII BACI), mostly unrefined sunflower oil from Black Sea neighbors, and shipped out 6.9% of world sunflower-oil export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI) as bottled refined oil. The margin is in refining and packaging rather than in the field, and the plants sit at Mersin, Izmir and on the Marmara coast where ships can discharge directly.

Cotton follows the same logic on a larger scale. It is grown on the irrigated Çukurova plain, in the Aegean valleys around Söke, and on land brought into production by the southeastern Anatolia dam and canal project on the Euphrates, but the mills of Denizli, Bursa and Kahramanmaraş spin and dye far more than Turkish farms supply. Turkey produced 3.1% of world cotton in 2023 (FAOSTAT), imported 8.5% of world cotton import value in 2024 (CEPII BACI), and exported 2.7% of world cotton export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI) as fiber, alongside a much larger trade in yarn, fabric and finished clothing that the raw-fiber tables do not show.

Grain is grown mainly for the domestic market. The central Anatolian plateau is dry and cold in winter, suited to bread wheat and barley in rotation with fallow, and Turkey produced 2.6% of the world's wheat in 2024 (FAOSTAT). Milling for export is a separate business run under an inward-processing regime that lets millers import duty-free grain provided the flour leaves again, which has made the country one of the largest flour and pasta exporters without a comparable grain surplus.

Metals and savings complete the pattern. Turkish rolling mills and manufacturers bought 4.6% of world aluminum import value in 2024 (CEPII BACI); feed compounders took 2.0% of world soybean import value in 2024 (CEPII BACI); and households, who hold savings in metal during periods of high inflation, help explain 2.6% of world gold import value in 2024 (CEPII BACI), refined and worked in the Istanbul jewelry trade.