We need to lay emphasis on the Fortune 500 Turkey list. This list, which is being prepared since 2007 and is showing the top 500 companies in terms of net sales magnitude, is of great importance for including all the data.
When we examine this list in detail, we can see that compared to last year, our companies are showing better performance both in terms of sales and exports. Compared to last year, the net sales of companies increased by 19.55% and thus reached 791.7 billion Turkish Liras. We can also observe that the total export in a year increased by 19.98% and reached 186.81 billion Turkish Liras. In the same way, we can also see that the number of people employed in companies, according to 2013, increased by 71, 657 and the total employment reached 1, 121, 236 people.
It's possible to say that our companies, which feature in the top 500 list, have shown an outstanding performance compared to last year; however, there is another aspect of this matter. This aspect is; the total sales of all the companies featured in the top 500 list is around 362.8 billion US Dollars… (The average exchange rate for 2014; 2.18 Turkish Lira)
It's a striking display; the total sales of our top 500 companies is only corresponding to 75% of Wall-Mart's, which is leading the top 500 list of the US, total sales of 485.64 billion US Dollars.
Moreover, we can see the differences in the areas of activity between the US and Turkey lists.
The top 50 companies in the US list are mostly operating in industry, informatics and telecommunication areas.
As for the companies in the Turkey list; they are companies that do brokering services directed at petrol and electric markets.
When we examine our companies in a sectoral sense, it's being understood that; manufacture companies reached 333.6 billion Turkish Liras with a 7.61% increase, commerce companies reached 281.7 billion Turkish Liras with a 33.85% increase, service companies reached 128.3 billion Turkish Liras with a 21.73% increase, and construction companies reached 47.9 billion Turkish Liras with a 32.17% increase. However, we can also see that activities directed at manufacturing is showing a lower performance.
As we've mentioned many times before, the way to possessing strong companies is passing through possessing a manufacture structure that has high added-value and high level of technology. The basis of manufacturing technology products with high added-value is; education. First, the information that will be manufactured is necessary to be put down to implementation. As for this implementation process; it's based on research and development activities.
Besides all this, in our country; 98% of the natural gas, 92% of the petrol and 30% of the coal is being imported. When we take the manufacturing of local and renewable sources into consideration; we can see that our import dependency in energy is 72%. This situation, as well as showing that the current deficit revealed by the energy import is being financed by resources that can turn into investments, is also showing us that the energy dependency is a serious obstacle in front of our companies' developments.
As of the result, despite the present global flatness, we can say that the increase in the revenues of the companies in the top 500 is positive for our economy; however, they are not enough for us to actualize our objectives. In this sense, we can say that; it's time for the companies to increase the benefit they provide to our economy by making manufacturing with high added-value and high technology levels. In other words, it's time for the companies to take the risk and start manufacturing the technologies of tomorrow.
