This scene is to be applauded
Life is a result-based game. Just like Victor Hugo said, the world is not interested in the storms you went through. It’s interested in whether you managed to dock your ship or not. However, sometimes the conditions may prove too harsh. When this is the case, you evaluate the results in detail and understand that it’s still a victory despite the income loss. Such was Turkey’s performance in 2020. If a country manages to conclude such a year with a loss of only %6.8 when flights and fairs were cancelled and commerce could continue under extraordinary conditions, it’s a great success.
Let’s talk about the figures. January and February went well in 2020 until the time when the Chinese market almost stopped. Turkey’s total income in 2020 was recorded as $1,735 billion. Having exported a total of 6,468,000 tons of natural stone during the pandemic year, Turkey earned 9.4% less and the amount of products exported decreased by 6.4% compared to
2019. In numbers, the Turkish natural stone sector’s total earnings decreased by $127 million compared to 2019. Now let’s talk about the export statistics in detail.
Our first stop is China. It’s Turkey’s biggest customer in the natural stone sector and where the pandemic started. China’s trade activities almost stopped in March and April and it was among the countries that received the worst impact from the pandemic. The amount of natural stone that we exported to the world-giant decreased by 21.4% and our income by 22.2%. In exchange for a total of 2.656.000 tons of natural stone exported to China, Turkey earned $540 million.
In India, the second critical market for our block export, the situation was no better. In exchange for 343.941 tons of natural stone export, Turkey earned $61.3 million there. The total loss was recorded as 33%. Having ranked as Turkey’s 4th biggest customer, it fell to 7th place. This situation of China and India of course had a huge impact on the block market. Turkey announced its total earnings from block trade as $663,287 million. Compared to 2019, the total loss of income was 23.2% and the decrease in the amount of products sold was %22.5.
While the block market was under such harsh conditions, the processed product market cheered Turkey up. In exchange for a total processed marble export of 1.876.307.000 tons, Turkey earned $725,2 million. As the market grew by 2.2%, the increase in the amount of products exported was announced at 5.4%. But the main boom was seen in processed travertine and granite sales. In 2020, processed travertine income increased by 22% and Turkey earned $271,34 million. In the processed granite market, the increase was 64% and the total increase of earnings was recorded as $17.1 million.
The main player in this increase of processed product sales was of course the US. Our income from this world-giant increased by 13.7% compared to 2019 and became $325 million. The increase in the total amount of products exported to the US was recorded as 22%. In Saudi Arabia, which was on our agenda with the news about boycotting Turkish products, we see interesting figures. Importing a total of 389 thousand tons of natural stone from Turkey, Saudi Arabia paid $139 million in exchange. The amount of products exported to Saudi Arabia increased by 16.9% and the income by 11%.
Evaluating the performance of the sector, Istanbul Mineral Exporters’ Association President Aydın Dinçer said, “we concluded the year with more or less the same figures. We were affected by the pandemic, however, this impact was not as fatal in all the fields. The strongest impact was directed to block exporters. We have a total loss of 22%. Companies that only sell blocks without factories were affected badly. In the processed products, however, we see some positive results. Seeing the outbreak atmosphere, we consider these numbers acceptable.”