The Presidential Cabinet Meeting has ended. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who appeared in front of the cameras after the Cabinet Meeting, made statements.
The highlights of Erdoğan's statement are as follows:
In October, we increased our exports by 8.1 percent compared to the same month of the previous year, reaching 25.9 billion dollars. With this figure, we achieved the third highest monthly export and the highest October export in the history of our Republic.
Our exports in the January-October period increased by 5.5 percent and broke a new record with 236.8 billion dollars. In October, our annualized exports reached the highest level in its history with 285.6 billion dollars.
As you know, at the beginning of 2026, we set our annualized goods and services export target as 410 billion dollars. Incoming export data indicate that this target has been exceeded. It seems that we will reach a new peak with a total of 413 billion dollars.
We achieved another success in exports in technology. Our exports of medium-high and high-tech products broke an all-time record, reaching 118.6 billion dollars with an increase of 8.8 percent. We have also achieved significant success in defense and aerospace exports.
In October, our exports in this field increased by 61 percent compared to the same period last year and reached 1 billion 140 million dollars. It increased by 37 percent on a 12-month basis to 11 billion 357 million dollars.
While our foreign trade deficit decreased by 11.4 percent in October, the ratio of exports to imports increased by 3.4 percent.
We see a similar graph in tourism. We hosted a total of 49 million 132 thousand visitors in our country between January and September 2026.
We increased our tourism income by 2.4 percent compared to the same period in 2025, reaching 51 billion 278 million dollars. With this figure, we increased tourism revenues to the highest level in both quarterly and nine-month periods.
In the same period, the average stay of visitors in our country was 10.34 nights, while the average spending per person per night increased by 4.6 percent to 107.7 dollars. The average spending of foreign visitors per person per night approached 120 dollars.
We have decided to extend the employee support we provide to our facilities with Ministry of Tourism operating certificates until 2028.
As you know, we have been making move after move in the field of energy in recent years. We have minimized the impact of these crises on our country with our source country, route and form diversification strategy and effective energy diplomacy.
However, we are a country that has grown at an average rate of 5.4 percent in the last 23 years and will continue its growth momentum from now on.
We aim to increase our exports to 300 billion dollars and our tourism revenues to over 70 billion dollars.
Our population is expected to exceed 88 million in 2030 and reach 94 million in 2050. This means we will need more energy.
Today, we meet the gas needs of 4 million households from the Black Sea with the natural gas we produce.
With the Osman Gazi floating platform, which we sent off to its place of duty on October 17, we will double the production here and increase the number of households to 8 million.
On the other hand, Şırnak Gabar has become the capital of oil. We produce Türkiye's highest quality oil in Gabar, where terrorism, violence and fear were once prevalent.
Today, we reached 84 thousand barrels per day in 184 wells. We supply 8 percent of our consumption from Gabar.
Production started in Gabar. According to our initial assessments, these two new fields have an in-situ oil potential of 135 million barrels.
With the field development activities in Gabar and the commissioning of new wells, the daily oil production of the region will increase by 30 percent.
In the second half of 2027, our daily production in the region will exceed the 100 thousand barrel threshold with approximately 230 wells.
The current equivalent of 120 thousand barrels of daily production means a contribution of 4.4 billion dollars to our economy annually.
On November 3-4, I visited South Korea again after an eight-year break, upon the invitation of President Mr. Myung.
During our extremely productive visit to Korea, five new documents were signed in the fields of energy, investment, mining, scientific cooperation and project finance.
We aim to advance our partnerships with Korea in different areas such as economy, trade, nuclear energy, investments and defense industry.
We attach great importance to working more closely with Korea in advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors and battery production.
I hope that our visit to Korea will lead to further strengthening of relations between our countries and peoples.
Tomorrow, we will go to Antalya for the COP31 Summit, where we will host more than 100 heads of state and government.
We will have speeches and meetings in Antalya for three days. We will meet with our guests coming to Türkiye from different continents of the world and discuss many issues, especially the climate crisis.
We will continue to work patiently to make Türkiye a leader in its region and an influential actor in the world.
Again, with the same awareness of responsibility, we will increase our efforts to find solutions to our nation's problems and expectations.
We are resolving the funding issue, which has been on our agenda since September 17, step by step within the framework of the road map we announced.
Our relevant ministers and institutions make the necessary statements regularly. We are following the issue very closely.
I hope there will not be the slightest compromise or compromise in this.
When the funding issue first arose, I said, "We are not like others." I am sure it is now very clear that we are not like others.
I believe that our astute stance and determined attitude towards protecting the rights and laws of our nation is understood by everyone.
I expect our citizens to continue to trust us.
