Turkiye will increase its efforts to produce more gold in order to reduce imports, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said, informing that the new gold mine inaugurated in western Anatolia will gradually generate 6.5 tons of gold annually.
“Our gold production, which was almost zero in 2000, broke the record of the history of the Republic [of Turkiye with 42 tons in 2020. According to the data of the last five years, our average production is around 35 tons,” Erdoğan said at the ceremony of the opening Gübretaş Gold Mine in Söğüt province of Bilecik in western Anatolia on Jan. 27.
Turkiye produced around 455 tons of gold in 16 different mines since the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government came to power, Erdoğan said, “With the new discoveries,we are aiming to increase our production. This will be important in terms of foreign trade balance.”
Gold along with oil is the commodity Turkiye is mostly importing, the president said, also vowing to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign sources by benefiting more from the national reserves.
“For very many years, Turkiye could not benefit from its potential in the field of precious metal. Turkiye has been subject to a significant number of plots [to hinder its precious metal sector] in the pretext of environmentalism,” the president said, adding they never allowed these blockages to prevent from developing the sector.
“Last year, our mineral exports increased by 9.1 percent compared to the previous year and reached $6.5 billion, breaking the record in the history of the Republic in this field,” he stated. “We have increased the contribution of our mining industry to the gross domestic product from 11 billion Turkish Liras to 93 billion liras in the last 14 years.”
Erdoğan recalled that Turkiye is doing its best in order to use all the energy sources across the country, including renewable energy and hydrocarbon reserves.
“Turkiye is writing its own history in the field of renewable energy. Though some have just discovered solar and wind energy, we have jumped to fifth in Europe and 12th in the world in renewable energy,” he informed.
On natural gas, some 50 vessels and more than 10,000 workers are working day and night to bring the natural gas discovered in the Black Sea to the national distribution network at the end of March, president underlined.
Erdoğan also stressed that the first unit of Turkiye’s first Nuclear Power Plant will continue to generate electricity in 2023.