Turkey and UK close in one Free Trade Deal

As the UK and Turkey close in on a free trade agreement to boost bilateral trade up to £15 billion by 2023, Metro is enhancing our freight services to and from the region.

Turkey is “very close” to signing a free trade agreement with the UK covering manufactured goods, agriculture and services, Turkey’s foreign minister has told the Financial Times.

The UK is Turkey’s second-largest trade partner after Germany, and securing an FTA with Britain is deemed critical for Turkish manufacturers, particularly carmakers, textile factories and white goods producers. 

Total UK-Turkish trade hit a high of £18.8bn last year, with £7.9bn in British exports, and £10.9bn of Turkish imports to the UK, with more than 2,500 UK companies operating in Turkey including BP, Shell, Vodafone, Unilever, BAE Systems and Diageo. 

Turkey’s main exports to the UK are vehicles, white goods and clothes.

Turkey is a member of the EU customs union, which means they can’t sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with the UK before the completion of the EU-UK trade agreement.

For UK companies trading with Turkey, Metro provides a wide selection of service departures, transit times and freight modes to ensure that you get your product delivered on time, at the best price, every time. 

Our teams in the UK, along with our partners in Turkey, arrange national collections and deliveries, while managing daily full load operations and receiving export cargo at our freight centres for the secure groupage services, which depart three times weekly. 

Metro’s groupage service is unbeatable for consolidating your smaller consignments of cartons and pallets together for cost-effective transport to and from Turkey.

Our 13.6M tilt-sided trailers offer over 100 cubic metres of loading space, which makes our groupage services so economical and means we can handle the biggest full load requirements.

For ultra-heavy and outsize cargo we can position specialist equipment and, when appropriate, offer a total project-shipping service.

Specialised equipment is also available for temperature sensitive products and hanging garments.

For valuable and urgent shipments our driver accompanied road trailers move door-to-door without transhipment or route deviation, with a transit time of just seven days. 

We also offer the environmentally appealing option of a sea freight leg between Turkey and Northern Europe, which cuts road miles by over 50%, offering a significant cut in CO2 emissions per M3.