Turkiye's mining exports reached a historic high of $5.9 billion in 2021, Fatih Donmez, the energy and natural resources minister, announced Tuesday.

Speaking at the 2021 Mining Exports Evaluation meeting, Donmez said both the energy and mining sectors have had a successful year despite the global COVID-19 pandemic.

From mining exports of $565 million in 2000, a ten-fold increase was seen over the past 20 years and a 40% year-on-year rise in 2021 with mining exports totaling $4.27 billion, Donmez said.

"The top 10 countries that we exported in 2021 were China, the US, Spain, Bulgaria, Belgium, Italy, India, Sweden, Germany, and France. Of course, it is not limited to these. We also added new countries to our portfolio such as Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Hong Kong, Albania, and Serbia," he added.

China topped the list with a 28% share of Turkiye's mining exports, followed by the US with 9.7%, Spain with 5%, and Bulgaria and Belgium each with 4%, according to Donmez.

Metallic minerals were the products that Turkiye exported the most last year, with exports standing at $2.25 billion, followed by refined natural stones at $1.28 billion and industrial minerals at $1.1 billion.

Mining sector's contribution to economy grows five-fold

The gold sector has made great strides with Turkiye's gold exports reaching $7.6 billion. With imports at $5.6 billion, the country made a $2 billion foreign trade surplus, reversing the trade deficit trend set in 2017.

He also shared the country’s achievement in revenue from boron last year, with exports exceeding $1 billion.

"While the mining sector contributed only 11 billion Turkish liras to the gross domestic product in 2009, this number reached 59.2 billion liras in 2020," he said, noting that this represented a five-fold increase over the last 10 years./aa