Turkish businesses are hopeful of a positive impact on economic relations of the recent meeting between Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and visiting Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Istanbul. The Turkiye-Greece Business Council expects the bilateral trade volume to quickly rise to $6-7 billion from around $5 billion now. Mitsotakis and Erdogan discussed bilateral ties, especially in energy, current geopolitical developments and the Ukraine conflict, according to media reports from Turkiye. Pointing out that the products imported from Greece were mainly concentrated in petrochemicals and agriculture, Levent Sadik Ahmet, head of the Foreign Economic Relations Board's (DEIK) Turkiye-Greece Business Council, said that exports included products from sectors like automotive, readymade clothing, jewellery, machinery, cereals and pulses.
Data from the International Trade Centre show the trade volume between the two countries has fluctuated over the past decade. Turkiye has had a trade surplus with Greece since 2019. Their trade volume, which approached $5 billion in 2012, exceeded $6 billion in 2014 and registered at $5.3 billion in 2021. Last year, Turkiye's exports to Greece were worth $3.1 billion, while its imports reached $2.2 billion. Among the sectors with the highest exports to Greece, chemicals and chemical products, steel, electric and electronics, automotive, and textiles stand out.