Turkey's top 1,000 exporters make $92B exports in 2017

A thousand Turkish companies made nearly 60 percent -- $92.3 billion -- of all of the country's exports in 2017, according to the Turkish Exporters' Assembly (TIM).

Ford Otosan came at the top of companies with $4.79 billion exports, followed by Toyota Motor Manufacturing Turkey ($4.44 billion) and Tofas Automobile ($3.2 billion), according to the TIM's ranking of "Top 1,000 Export Companies of Turkey" announced on Tuesday.

Five of the first 10 export companies come from the automotive sector -- Ford Otosan, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Turkey, Tofas Automobile, Oyak-Renault and Mercedes-Benz Turk.

The automotive sector's share in the top 1,000 exporters was 27.2 percent ($28.5 billion), followed by textile and steel sectors with 9.7 percent and 9.5 percent, respectively.

The country's most-populous city, Istanbul, led the ranking with 426 exporters.

Top 1,000 companies exports rose by 13.4 percent to reach $92.3 billion in 2017, compared with the previous year.

Ten companies climbed over $1 billion export mark during the year, while the first 500 companies made 50.3 percent of the country's total exports.

"Considering Turkey's potential, 10 companies that made more than $1 billion exports were not enough. Our target is 50 companies for 2023," Mehmet Buyukeksi, chairman of the TIM, said in a press release.

He added, for this target they need to export more value-added products and more investment needs to be made in research and development (RD), innovation, design and branding.

"Last year, 202 of top 1,000 companies have RD centers and they spent $6.2 billion on RD," Buyukeksi said.

A total of 61 percent of top exporters were indigenous companies, the TIM data showed.

Buyukeksi said: "By the end of 2018, we will hit the historical high in exports reaching over $170 billion."

Turkey's share in the world trade was 0.9 percent in 2017, this figure will increase in 2018, he added.