Economy
Türkiye eyes stronger trade ties with Latin America, Caribbean
Türkiye was home to 688 companies funded by Latin American and Caribbean capital as of the end of 2025, with their capital investment stock in the country reaching $3.4 billion, Trade Minister Ömer Bolat said.
Speaking at a meeting with ambassadors of Latin American countries at the Trade Ministry on Thursday, Bolat offered condolences on behalf of the Turkish nation and government over the earthquake in Venezuela, saying Türkiye would stand by the country in search and rescue and other relief efforts.
Bolat said relations between Türkiye and Latin America had developed on the basis of mutual respect and a shared vision, adding that the “Latin America and the Caribbean Opening Policy,” launched in 1998 and updated in 2006, had begun to bear fruit.
Pointing to the significant increase in Türkiye’s diplomatic presence in the region in recent years, Bolat said: “We increased the number of our diplomatic missions from six in 2002 to 20 today. We have trade counselor offices in most countries in the region. Likewise, we are very pleased that Latin American countries have 18 embassies in Türkiye.”
Bolat said Türkiye and Latin American countries had signed important trade and political agreements over the past two decades, while direct flights from Türkiye to the region had also begun during this period.
He also highlighted aid carried out in the region by the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), saying Turkish institutions had rapidly delivered assistance to the region during natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes.
Despite geopolitical risks and protectionist policies, Bolat said the Turkish economy had recorded positive growth for the past 23 quarters and ranked 16th in the world with an economy exceeding $1.1 trillion. He said Türkiye had introduced legal regulations to provide incentives to international investors.
Bolat noted that Türkiye had reduced the corporate tax rate for international investments from 25% to 12.5%.
“We have also launched the ‘One-Stop Office’ system to carry out the permit and licensing procedures investors need from a single center. Our national income per capita has exceeded $18,000. The downward trend in inflation and unemployment remaining in single digits for the past three years continue to make Türkiye an attractive center for investors,” he said.
Bolat said Türkiye’s combined goods and services exports reached $390 billion in 2025, adding that the target for 2026 was $410 billion. He also pointed to the global success of the Turkish contracting sector, saying Turkish firms had undertaken projects worth $562 billion in 138 countries.
Bolat said the coming period would see intense diplomatic activity, noting that Türkiye would host major international events this year, including the NATO Summit, the U.N. Climate Change Conference COP31 and the International Astronautical Congress.
He said Türkiye’s trade relations with Latin America and the Caribbean had gained momentum in recent years. The total trade volume with the region stood at just $920 million in 2000 but increased 18-fold over 25 years to reach $16.4 billion, he said.
Bolat said $5.7 billion of the total trade consisted of Türkiye’s exports to Latin America and the Caribbean, while $10.6 billion came from imports from the region.
“Trade with the region continued to increase in the first five months of this year, reaching $8.3 billion. While Türkiye’s exports to Latin America remained almost unchanged during this period, imports from the Latin American region increased by 19%. Thus, the foreign trade volume rose by 15.7%,” he said.
Bolat said Türkiye’s exports to Latin American countries mainly included gold, jewelry, iron and steel, automotive products, cement and petroleum oils, while imports from the region included live cattle, raw unprocessed gold, soybeans, coffee, cotton and hard coal.
Noting that Latin America and the Caribbean still did not account for a large share of Türkiye’s foreign trade, Bolat said the region’s share in Türkiye’s total exports in 2025 was 2.1%, while its share in total imports was around 3%.
“This picture shows that our supply from the region has strengthened, but it also indicates that we need to place greater importance on mutual trade relations and achieve a more balanced structure in foreign trade. In the coming period, we will raise these rates further,” he said.
Bolat said Türkiye was closely following regional integration initiatives such as MERCOSUR, or the Southern Common Market, and the Pacific Alliance, in addition to maintaining good bilateral ties with countries in the region.
“We are also carefully monitoring developments regarding the free trade agreement signed between the European Union and MERCOSUR. We believe Türkiye’s more than 30 years of Customs Union integration experience with the European Union in industrial products is also important for developing our economic relations with MERCOSUR,” he said.
Bolat said Türkiye had free trade agreements with Chile and Venezuela in the region, Joint Economic Commission mechanisms with 24 countries and Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO) mechanisms with several countries.
He said the first JETCO meeting with Paraguay had also been held recently, adding that Türkiye had agreements on the reciprocal promotion and protection of investments with eight friendly countries in the region, as well as double taxation avoidance agreements with six countries.
Bolat said there were 13 business councils for the region within the Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK), adding that Türkiye aimed to further advance trade, investment and economic cooperation through new projects and that he believed the number of business councils would increase further.
Highlighting mutual investments, Bolat said: “As of the end of 2025, 688 companies with Latin American and Caribbean capital had been established in Türkiye, and their capital investment stock in Türkiye stood at $3.4 billion. Direct investment and capital stock from Türkiye to Latin American countries amounts to $1.3 billion. Turkish companies have investments in many sectors in Latin America, from port operations and energy investments to construction and tourism. Considering the potential between us, it is clear that mutual investments need to increase further.”
Bolat said the total value of projects undertaken by Turkish international contracting firms in Latin America and the Caribbean had reached $1.6 billion, with 45 projects completed or undertaken to date.
He also said Turkish TV series had attracted intense interest in the region, adding that Türkiye was the world’s third-fastest-growing country in TV series and film exports after the U.S. and the U.K.
Bolat said Turkish productions had become a global brand, reaching more than 1 billion viewers daily in over 150 countries.
“Turkish TV series attract great interest across Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly in Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Mexico and Brazil, as well as in North America, both on national television channels and digital streaming platforms,” he said.
“With the growing interest in Turkish series in recent years, there has also been a significant rise in demand among people in the region to learn Turkish. According to the latest services export data, Türkiye exports around $610 million worth of TV series annually, 22% of which goes to the Americas. Around 40% of Türkiye’s TV and film exports to the Americas reach service consumers in the Latin American market,” he added.
Bolat said Türkiye also recognized Latin America’s deep-rooted production experience in the sector, noting that Latin American TV series were also followed with great interest in Türkiye.
“By combining Latin America’s experience in TV and film production with Türkiye’s production strength, intensive cooperation can be developed in areas such as joint productions, adaptations, scriptwriting and format exchange,” he said.
Global footwear brand Skechers has launched a new shoe featuring a hidden compartment enabling the integration of location-tracking technology, allowing parents to follow their children’s location.
The new “Where’s My Skechers?” model incorporates a dedicated compartment under the heel of the insole that has a screw-tight cover that hides the locator tag.
Tracking tags and mini screwdrivers are sold separately.
The feature is designed to help parents monitor their children’s whereabouts in environments where they can easily become separated, such as parks, shopping malls, school trips, airports and other crowded public venues.
Skechers said the product combines comfort with technology, enabling parents to check their child’s location through compatible devices such as Apple’s AirTag when needed while allowing children to move freely throughout the day.
AirTags, introduced in 2021, are primarily designed to help users locate personal belongings but have increasingly been incorporated into various accessories.
Senior U.S. and Canadian trade officials are working to finalize a potential agreement that could be presented to U.S. President Donald Trump as early as Monday, Canada’s CBC reported, citing unnamed sources.
The Tuesday report said that the joint proposal could reach Trump at least a day before an Aug. 19 deadline, giving him time to make a final decision before new 50% tariffs on hundreds of Canadian imports are set to take effect.
Canada-US Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer LeBlanc are meeting in Washington on Tuesday, their third face-to-face meeting in three weeks. LeBlanc’s trip was delayed after his flight was diverted to Montreal on Monday due to severe weather.
Canada’s chief trade negotiator, Janice Charette, also spent Monday in Washington meeting with U.S. trade officials. Neither LeBlanc nor Charette will comment on the negotiations, the report said.
Beyond seeking to prevent new tariffs, Canada wants relief from U.S. tariffs on steel, aluminum, lumber, and autos, and hopes the talks will lead to an extension of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement.
Last month, Washington also announced additional tariffs of 50% on certain Canadian goods, covering products ranging from wine and hockey sticks to cement, according to the White House.
Four years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered an energy crisis, European countries are facing fresh questions about natural gas security as the war in the Middle East grinds on.
Surging prices due to Iran’s closure of the Straits of Hormuz are keeping liquefied natural gas (LNG) stocks unusually low, with winter just months away.
That raises the spectre of both supply difficulties and prices remaining well above pre-crisis levels, just as colder Continental weather drives up demand.
Stockpiles slump
Besides its use in heating and producing electricity, gas also powers many factories across Europe.
Summer is traditionally when energy firms take advantage of lower prices to fill LNG storage tanks, preparing for higher winter demand.
In a typical year, storage sites would be filled to “around 75% to 80%,” said Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a researcher at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.
Currently, the level is just 58% – the lowest since 2021 – according to Gas Infrastructure Europe, an industry association cited by the resources consulting firm Kpler.
Why?
“The European Union ended last winter with underground gas storage at only 28%, significantly lower than in previous years,” said Ronald Pinto, an analyst at Kpler First.
European imports were curtailed by the U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran, which led Tehran to effectively close the Strait of Hormuz to Gulf tanker traffic.
That halted gas shipments from Qatar, a key European supplier, driving up prices of contracts for future delivery, the main way of buying LNG on global markets.
“Italy, Poland and Belgium, contracted buyers of Qatari LNG, have borne the direct losses, as they have been unable to import any Qatari LNG volumes since April 2 – the date on which Italy received its last vessel loaded with Qatari LNG,” Pinto said.
Pricing pain
European buyers had hoped prices would ease by summer, allowing them to fill storage tanks later for less.
The Dutch TTF contract – the benchmark for European gas – for September delivery is currently trading between 55 euros ($63.4) and 58 euros per megawatt-hour.
The cost was just 30 euros before the Middle East war, and as low as 15-20 euros before the war in Ukraine.
An EU Commission spokesperson expressed confidence that filling storage tanks to 80% of capacity “is sufficient to secure winter supply and it is technically achievable.”
Europe has significantly ramped up its import capacity since the war in Ukraine, which prompted it to slash its Russian gas supplies.
Russia still supplies around 12% of the bloc’s gas imports, according to the European Council, but by the end of 2027 it will ban them completely.
“It is also worth noting that EU gas demand has decreased by 17% compared to pre-crisis levels” before 2022, the spokesperson added.
Austerity in store?
Analysts are not so sanguine.
“Supply risks to Europe remain elevated amid reduced LNG availability from the Middle East,” Rystad Energy analyst Antonia Syn said in a recent market update.
Gas infrastructure routinely experiences breakdowns or technical disruptions that halt flows.
And severe cold in the United States – now Europe’s biggest single supplier – could divert its supplies to domestic buyers.
Asian countries that usually buy from Gulf suppliers could also turn to U.S. or other sources, driving up prices to painful levels for European buyers.
So the longer Europe waits to fill up storage sites, the bigger the risks.
“We believe this wait-and-see approach has kept TTF prices from reflecting a scenario of extreme gas scarcity during the winter period,” said Pinto at Kpler First.
He expects average monthly prices to remain at 55 to 62 euros per MW/h through the rest of the year.
“For now we’re seeing LNG go more to Asia than to us, because prices are even higher there,” Corbeau said.
“If stocks are down, if the winter is rough and some other problem happens, we’ll have to start thinking about conservation measures,” she warned, as was the case across Europe in 2022.
Türkiye expects to double natural gas output from its flagship gas field in the Black Sea after deploying its first floating production platform later this year, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said Tuesday.
Preparations for the Osman Gazi are nearing completion at Filyos Port on the Black Sea coast, where it is being readied for a send-off, the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry said in a statement.
The reserves Türkiye has discovered in the Black Sea since 2020 are estimated at approximately 785 billion cubic meters (bcm). The Sakarya Gas Field alone accounts for about 710 bcm.
The reserves are key to Türkiye’s push to curb its heavy dependence on imported energy. Natural gas, along with crude oil, constitutes the largest item in its energy import bill, which was $62 billion last year.
The Sakarya field accounted for about 6.6% of Türkiye’s 53 bcm gas consumption last year, according to calculations.
Current production from the field stands at 9.5 million cubic meters per day. Osman Gazi is expected to double that output once it enters service.
The platform is planned to be dispatched to its operating location at the end of September and commissioned in the final quarter of the year, Bayraktar said on the social media platform X.
Final stages
As part of the final outfitting process, engineers completed the installation of Osman Gazi’s flare tower, a critical safety component designed to safely vent and burn excess hydrocarbon gases during emergency situations while maintaining safe operating pressure.
The installation required two heavy-lift cranes with lifting capacities of 3,500 tons and 800 tons.
The completed flare tower stands 96 meters (314.96 feet) high, weighs 260 tons and occupies a base area of approximately 65 square meters.
The ministry described the operation as one of the final major stages before the platform begins offshore operations.
Production targets
Bayraktar said doubling production would enable the Sakarya field to supply natural gas to 8 million households.
Türkiye currently uses production from the Black Sea field to meet the gas needs of around 4 million households.
Bayraktar said Türkiye eventually plans to commission a second, higher-capacity floating production platform by 2028, increasing daily output to 45 million cubic meters.
At that level, domestic production from the Black Sea would be sufficient to meet the natural gas demand of 17 million households, he said.
Natural disasters have incurred economic losses estimated at $100 billion in the first half of this year, reinsurance group Swiss Re said Tuesday, in what is seen as a sharp decline from the same period last year.
Despite severe storms in the U.S. and the deadly earthquakes that struck Venezuela in June, the losses were well below the $152 billion recorded in the first half of 2025, the group said in its latest report.
The losses were also 10% below the 10-year average for the period.
But Swiss Re, which serves as an insurer for insurance companies, noted that losses from natural disasters often increase in the second half of the year, mainly due to hurricanes in the North Atlantic Ocean.
“A less costly first half of the year does not mean the risk has gone away,” said Balz Grollimund, the group’s director of Catastrophe Perils.
“One major hurricane, earthquake, or wildfire can quickly change the picture.”
Severe heat across Europe since June has sparked an early wildfire season in France and Spain that has already destroyed thousands of homes and businesses as well as infrastructure.
“Wildfire risk has so far accounted for only a relatively small share of insured losses in Europe. Yet it is the fastest-growing weather peril globally,” the company said.
It said insured wildfire losses had risen by 8% to 11% per year in Europe since 1970 after adjusting for inflation and other factors.
Looking forward, Swiss Re warned that the El Nino climate pattern, which began in June and is expected to peak later this year, could accentuate the cost from weather-related disasters.
“El Nino may influence tropical cyclone activity in the Central and East Pacific and could alter the risk of floods, wildfires and other weather extremes elsewhere,” it said.
“The long-term drivers of catastrophe losses remain unchanged, including growing exposure in hazard-prone areas and rising reconstruction costs,” it added.
Türkiye’s overall trade sales volume decreased by 4.5% on an annual basis in June, driven by a moderation in most of the subcategories, official data showed on Tuesday.
The drop in sales was driven by the fall in volume of wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, which decreased by 13.8%, and wholesale trade sales volume, which was down by 9.4%, the data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) revealed.
In contrast, retail sales volume rose by 11.8% compared to the same month last year.
On a monthly basis, the country’s total trade sales volume was up by 1.9% in June, while retail sales also increased by 0.7%.
Month-on-month, motor vehicle sales volume dropped by 5.7%, while wholesale trade increased by 4%.
Retail sales growth eases
The retail sales have been relatively resilient in recent months, particularly in the first quarter of the year. However, the pace of expansion moderated as June sales were slower than the 12.8% growth recorded in May.
Retail sales track consumer demand for finished goods and serve as a critical economic barometer.
Within the retail sector, non-food sales excluding automotive fuel surged by 17.6% annually in June, according to the institute’s figures.
Data also showed that mail order and internet retail sales expanded significantly, growing by 22.4% year-over-year.
Food, drinks, and tobacco sales grew by 2.9% annually, while automotive fuel retail sales rose by 1.1% during the same period.
Turnover up 25.8%
A separate report shared by TurkStat on Tuesday showed that the total turnover of the Turkish economy increased by 25.8% on an annual basis in June.
Looking at the details of the total turnover index, industry turnover increased by 26.7%, construction surged by 29.9%, trade saw a 23.5% rise, and turnover in the services sector increased by 31.3% on a yearly basis.
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