Egypt's Turmoil Batters Turkey's Exports

Turkey sells one-fifth of its exports to customers in the Middle East, and its reliance on that market has tripled in the past decade. Now the civil war in Syria and strife in Egypt are putting that growth in jeopardy. Turkish trucks used to reach the Persian Gulf via Syria, but the civil war shut that route down. The solution was to ship trucks in specialized vessels nicknamed ro-ros (for roll on/roll off) to Egyptian ports. There the trucks drive off the vessels and go on their way.

That trade route became problematic after the Egyptian army toppled Islamist President Mohamed Mursi on July 3. Since then, Turkish exports shipped through Egypt’s ports have dropped as much as 30 percent, according to data from OSF International Logistics Services, a privately held transport company in Turkey. This comes on top of a 5 percent drop in exports to 10 Middle Eastern countries in June, Turkey’s statistics office shows. “Nobody seems to realize there is a very serious problem here,” says Mustafa Yilmaz, owner of Cem-Ay International Transportation. “We are losing trade just because of political developments with those countries.”