Manufacturers going abroad want fast growth, not cheap labor

The manufacturer, which has given up on the priority of cheap labor in direct investment, is now focusing on faster growth in developed markets. Since the early 2000s, many companies from Turkey have started to expand abroad. However, these were large-scale acquisitions such as Ülker's purchase of Belgian chocolate producer Godiva. After 2015, these acquisitions began to attract the attention of smaller companies. They have also increased rapidly in recent years. According to the data of the Ministry of Trade, the number of domestic companies with investments abroad increased from 1,788 in 2018 to 2,033 by the end of 2022. While the capital of these companies abroad was 44.8 billion dollars in 2018, it increased by 20.71 percent to 54.08 billion dollars by the end of 2022.