April 8 (SeeNews) - The volume of e-commerce in Turkey rose sharply by 66% annually to 226.2 billion lira ($27.7 billion/23.3 billion euro) in 2020, local media reported on Thursday.
The country's e-commerce spending to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio reached 4.1% in 2020, marking a 51.8% increase compared to a year earlier, Anadolu Agency quoted trade minister Ruhsar Pekcan as saying.
According to the trade minister, the number of e-commerce active companies in Turkey jumped by 275% year-on-year to 256,861 in 2020, which is an indicator of dynamic development of the sector. The number of orders rose by an annual 68% last year, she added.
Turkey's e-commerce volume to general trade ratio rose from 9.8% in 2019 to 15.7% on average in 2020, Pekcan also noted.
Last year, the sectors which reported the sharpest increases in e-commerce were food and supermarket, up more than 200%, followed by the metallurgy and chemical sector with 189% growth and home appliances with 129% increase, according to the trade minister.
At the same time, the sectors of travel/transport and entertainment and arts saw the largest annual decreases, of 46% each, followed by airlines and accommodation services, with declines of 40% and 37% on the year, respectively, Pekcan added.
(1 euro = 9.7087 lira)