THE GLOBAL WINDOW OF TURKISH FOOD AND AGRICULTURE The Global Window of Turkish Food and Agriculture Sector
Related Articles
Press release…
2025 will likely be remembered worldwide as the year of Trump. Trump, with his new leadership style, left a deep mark on the world in every area, from politics to economics. While the US strengthened its economy through tariff pressure, Asian countries, especially China, India and Indonesia, continued to grow, while the European economy continued to stagnate. Despite global growth performing better than expected, unfortunately, inequalities also soared.
For Türkiye, 2025 was a difficult year, as predicted. Economic growth is expected to end the year at around 3.5-4 percent. This year, we clearly saw the impact of domestic demand on growth. In industry, the real growth rate is very low, and the contribution of exports to growth is unfortunately limited. In agriculture, we experienced a record contraction due to the effects of frost events.
2024 was a year in which we struggled in terms of competition, but in 2025, we can say that the sectoral spread of this struggle has surged. Inflation is falling; however, there is no consensus yet on whether this decline is clearly felt by the public. Large segments of the population are not experiencing disinflation. The state of inflation expectations, despite the improvement, clearly demonstrates this. This negatively impacts the success of the monetary policy being pursued. We experienced a year in which Türkiye became a somewhat more expensive country. The fact that the current account deficit, despite some deterioration, remains at a controllable level is a positive development for 2025.
Budget figures show that the government is pursuing a policy of increasing revenue, not reducing expenditures. Of course, when making this assessment, it is necessary not to ignore a major impact such as earthquake expenditures.
The relationship between the growth of the national economy and the growth of the agricultural sector is increasingly diverging against agriculture. This year, the share of agriculture in national income will likely fall to a historical low. We hope that 2026 will be a year of recovery in this sense. We believe that our country should treat this sector as a critical sector, just like the defense industry. We desire a production and producer-oriented approach to agriculture, a strategic sector; and an emphasis on sustainability and value-added production.
I sincerely hope that 2026 will bring peace and tranquility to our country and the world and that it will be a year full of abundance and prosperity.
Işınsu Kestelli,
Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of İzmir Commodity Exchange
