TURKEY: Gaziantep, the sixth largest city in Turkey with industries ranging from food and textiles to chemicals, has been hit hard by the deterioration of economic ties with Syria

Record ID: 280509

  • Title: TURKEY: Gaziantep, the sixth largest city in Turkey with industries ranging from food and textiles to chemicals, has been hit hard by the deterioration of economic ties with Syria
  • Date: 26th January 2012
  • Summary: GAZIANTEP, TURKEY (RECENT - JANUARY 13, 2012) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF TURKISH-SYRIAN BORDER VARIOUS OF VEHICLES AT KILIS BORDERGATE WAITING TO CROSS INTO SYRIA (SOUNDBITE) (Turkish) TURKISH TAXI DRIVER OSMAN KOC, SAYING: "I was travelling to Syria on daily basis. I would cross the border and return immediately as passengers would have been waiting for me. But now things
  • Embargoed: 10th February 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey, Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: Business,International Relations,Economy,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA68ENSF401NTXA57YK8VZTDW0R
  • Story Text: Worry etched across their faces, truck drivers line up their vehicles at Turkey's Oncupinar border gate, ready to run the gauntlet on a road they dread taking: south into Syria.
    Since Turkey late last year took the side of anti-government demonstrators seeking the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad, truckers plying the route between the border and the Syrian city of Aleppo have made an easy target for Assad loyalists.
    "I was travelling to Syria on daily basis. I would cross the border and return immediately as passengers would have been waiting for me. But now things have changed. Sometimes I go there, sometimes not. But previously, I had daily customers. I would take them to airport from here," taxi driver Osman Koc said.
    Banking on safety in numbers, the truckers try to travel in convoys.
    The United Nations estimates that some 5,000 people have been killed in the violence in Syria; the Syrian authorities say 2,000 police and soldiers have died fighting foreign-backed "terrorists".
    Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has demanded the resignation of his one-time friend Assad and in November ordered economic sanctions, which aim at Assad's government while trying to spare Syrian people more hardship. These include freezing state assets, banning entry by senior officials and suspending financial dealings. Although Turkey still trades with Syria, it is seeking alternative transport routes to export goods to other countries in the Middle East, which it estimates will cost Syria over $100 million in transport fees annually.
    The Syrian government retaliated by imposing a 30 percent trade tariff, and this month it cleared out its consulate in Gaziantep, historically one of the gateways from Anatolia to the Middle East.
    Gaziantep, the sixth largest city in Turkey with a population of more than 1 million and industries ranging from food and textiles to chemicals, has been hit hard by the deterioration of economic ties with Syria.
    While the city's exports to Syria were previously only around $150 million, they have fallen by close to one-third since the Syrian unrest began, and the cost to Gaziantep is magnified by the loss of visitors from Syria.
    Some 60,000 Syrians used to cross the border monthly, providing a contribution of around $1 billion a year to Gaziantep and the economy of the border region. The number of visitors from Syria has now dropped to around 1,000 people a month.
    Located far from wealthy western parts of Turkey, Gaziantep is one of the Anatolian cities that has prospered most from the country's economic boom over the past decade.
    Its newfound wealth is evident in many new hotels and office blocks, and the city's investment in a museum to show off its biggest tourist draw, an extensive collection of Roman mosaics.
    Syrian visitors used to flock to local stores to sample pistachios, honey and sweet pastries but not any more. Emin Altuntas reckons he used to get 100 Syrian customers a week, but now sees only ten.
    "Few people are coming here nowadays, therefore sales have been reducing. The current situation affects all shopkeepers including those selling household appliances and metal products. Before the unrest, at least 100 people a day were coming here and assume each of them spent 10 Turkish Liras (5.40 USD), they would spend 1000 liras (540 USD) a day," he said.
    Sitting in a chamber of commerce office in Kilis, a Turkish town of 120,000 people less than half an hour's drive from the border post, businessman Mehmet Erdal Ondes despaired at the way Turkish-Syrian relations had been turned on their head, saying that his area's trade with Syria was down by eighty percent.
    "Economy and trade in Kilis Province is totally dependent on Syria. So it is affected by the ongoing unrest. Trade rates fell 80 percent. Exports and imports came to a halt as the Syrian side has suspended all trade agreements," he said.
    The freight rate for a truck entering Syria has rocketed to $2,500 from around $300 before the unrest broke out last March, he said.
    Turkey has traditionally been Syria's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade worth $2.5 billion in 2010. But on a national level, Syria has not been as important to Turkey; Turkish exports to Syria were $1.6 billion in 2011, a small fraction of Turkey's overall exports last year of $135 billion, according to official Turkish data.
    Exports to Syria have dropped about 30 percent from a year earlier in the last few months. But that figure understates the impact of the disruption of regional trucking routes on Turkish businesses in the border area, businessmen say.
    "Turkey's export to Syria was around 2 billions dollars. Gaziantep's trade figures was around 150 millions dollars last year. These figures saw a 30 percent decrease after the unrest. But Syria was at the same time a transit country through which we were delivering export goods to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and Gulf countries. Now, we cannot use this route which affects most firms," Chairman of Gaziantep Trade Chamber, Mehmet Aslan said.
    Despite the immediate economic problems, local people in Gaziantep were broadly supportive of the anti-government demonstrations in Syria. Shop-keeper Ahmet Kucuk was looking forward to an end to the unrest and a return to normality.
    "Syria is a neighbouring country and Syrian people are our brothers and sisters. We want the unrest to come to an end as soon as possible and we want to see people coming here as they used to do. We will be happy when they will be," he said.
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