Chairman of the Aegean Mineral Exporters' Association Assesses 2020 Mineral Exports

Mevlüt Kaya, Chairman of the Board of the Aegean Exporters' Association of Mining Products, spoke about mining sector exports in 2020 as follows: Although the Covid-19 virus emerged in China, our largest export market, making us one of the sectors most affected by the pandemic, we earned USD 4.3 billion in foreign currency during the January-December period of 2020. Since we are a sector that supplies raw materials to all sectors and the domestic economy, we created a value of USD 40 billion together with the domestic market, contributing 5% of GDP to the country's economy. More than 90% of the economic value we provide consists of domestic inputs, meaning the added value remains in our country. The Amorphous Natural Stone Project Design Competition, which we organized for the first time this year to encourage processed product manufacturing and received nearly 400 applications for, is very important to us. Because instead of raw materials or semi-finished products, value-added products provided with design, artistic and aesthetic touches, and innovative technologies specifically to natural stone raw materials will raise our export volume to much higher levels as it deserves. For this reason, we want to bring design and aesthetics to the natural stone sector, create value-added products, and make new investments for these products. And of course, together with our miners, manufacturers, academics, designers, architects, and interior designers, we want to create a new economy in the sector. We believe that this competition, which we will also organize in 2021, will generate more interest and that the number of applications will increase. Since fairs, sectoral trade delegations, and travel have been cancelled due to the pandemic, natural stone exporters have not been able to present the textures and design details of their stones to their customers.

With our Vietnam Virtual Natural Stone Trade Delegation organization that we conducted a short time ago, we achieved a world first and brought three-dimensional company stands modeled with augmented reality technology together with importers.

In this way, customers in Vietnam were able to virtually bring the stands containing real dimensions, colors, and surface treatments to life from their mobile phones, meeting their visual needs. This advantage offered by digitalization is increasing the likelihood of exporting our natural stones. To increase Turkey's competitiveness in the mining sector and increase the yield from mining, we need well-trained qualified engineers. For this purpose, as the Mining Sector Board (EMİB, İMİB and BAİB), within the framework of the protocol we signed with YÖK in 2020-2021, we began providing scholarships to students who selected mining engineering, geology engineering and ore preparation engineering and were ranked within a certain threshold. Of Turkey's successful 80,000 students, 146 made these departments their first five preferences and were placed. These students became eligible to receive scholarships amounting to the minimum wage. We hope that our new students joining us and our youth will graduate from their departments in the best-equipped manner on behalf of our sectors, and will accelerate this reform movement we have started in our factories, in the factories they will open themselves, or in their own enterprises. While extracting minerals, one of our country's most important natural resources, from the ground with an army of 150,000 miners and introducing them to the economy under the motto of "Sustainable Mining," we contribute to enabling 2 million of our people to make a living from the mining sector. We contribute not only to the lives of our 83 million people, but to making the lives of 8 billion people in the world easier. In 2020, we exported Turkish minerals to 200 countries and free zones. Finally, in 2021, when we will also celebrate the 31st anniversary of the founding of our association, with awareness of the responsibility and targets placed upon us to overcome, to some extent, the difficulties our sector has experienced for many years, we are very grateful to our exporting companies on this dedicated path, who trust us and do not withhold their valuable opinions from us, and I wish you healthy, prosperous and peaceful days.