Speaking following a UND meeting in İstanbul, Özmen noted that security has become too much of an issue for the route to be used -- particularly in the past few weeks, during which the relations between Turkey and Syria deteriorated over the Syrian regime’s brutal crackdown on the opposition demanding removal of embattled President Bashar al-Assad. “Syria has been the number one agenda item for Turkey in the past year, as it has been for the UND. That the problems in Syria have so worsened has had a terrible impact on our transportation sector. I’m not only speaking of a temporary cessation of travels across Syria but also a loss of market access [for Turkish trucks],” he said.
Özmen elaborated on the matter by providing examples of the extent of security problems in Syria for Turkish trade today. “I looked at the figures only yesterday. What we see is a 22 percent year-on-year reduction for our Middle East transport. Yet another striking result is that the market share for goods transported by trucks with Syrian and Saudi Arabian plates has increased by 20 percent so far this year compared to a year earlier. In the past month there was no security for our trade. Our trucks have been stolen with all the cargo in them. Only a few days ago, for example, my friend’s truck was stolen and my friend could only get the vehicle back in return for $30,000, never mind its cargo. It has become impossible for a Turkish truck to enter Syria, and they don’t,” he said. Yet the Turkish-Syrian border gates are open and used by mostly Syrian and Saudi Arabian trucks. “They come here, take the cargo and go back. We lost the entire market to them,” Özmen said.
In the face of escalating violence and increasing passage fees for Turkish trucks in Syria, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government opted for a trade policy that favors Egypt as the main route to reach markets in the Gulf. The first roll on-roll off (Ro-Ro) ship taking Turkish goods to Gulf countries via Egypt left Turkey’s southern coast on April 26.
One major defect of the Ro-Ro option instead of the Syrian route is the cost; the Egyptian route using Ro-Ro costs exporters around $1,000 more than the Syrian trucking route. The government has started subsidizing companies for this extra transport cost yet can do nothing for the extra time lost during the journey to the Gulf. Currently a Ro-Ro ship with a 150-truck capacity leaves Mersin every two days en route to Egypt. The trucks then embark on another ship to travel across the Red Sea. “Those sea trips are conducted in a systemized and regular fashion,” Özmen said. “Yet this kind of transportation is not as fast,” he lamented. According to the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat), the trade volume between Turkey and Syria in the first quarter of 2012 took a dive, with a 63 percent drop from $528 million last year to $194 million this year. The overall bilateral trade revenue in 2011 was almost $2 billion, a drop of 13 percent from $2.3 billion in 2010, with trade heavily favoring Turkey. In the first quarter, Turkish exports to Syria dropped by 57 percent while imports from Syria fell by 83 percent.