Türkiye aims to increase jewelry exports to over 10 bln USD in 2023: business leader

ANKARA, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Türkiye aims to increase the exports of its jewelry products to over 10 billion U.S. dollars in 2023, despite the February earthquakes' impact on the sector, a business leader said.

Burak Yakin, chairman of the Turkish Jewellery Exporters' Union (MIB), told Xinhua in a recent interview that the country's jewelry industry is recuperating from the catastrophic earthquakes that jolted southern Türkiye in February and expected to continue its robust growth in 2023, surpassing the 10 billion U.S. dollars in exports recorded in 2022, up from 6.7 billion dollars of jewelry exports and re-exports registered in 2021.

Türkiye's exports of jewelry products have increased significantly in the past decade, and accounts for 1.5 percent of all Turkish exports in 2022, according to data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute in March.

More than 300 tons of gold are made into sophisticated pieces of jewelry in Turkish factories each year, according to statistics released by MIB.

"In terms of gold and silver refinery technology and production capacity, the Turkish jewelry industry ranks among the top three in the world," Yakin said.

Turkiye is the second-biggest exporter of gold jewelry after Italy and the third biggest consumer of gold after India and the United States. The jewelry sector creates more than 250,000 jobs in Turkiye, according to data from the Ministry of Trade.