Ankara, Jan 3 (IANS): Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that the country's exports in 2022 reached a record high of $254.2 billion, registering a year-on-year growth of 12.9 per cent.

"Our goal now is to make Turkey one of the top 10 exporting countries," Erdogan told the Turkey Exporters Assembly in Istanbul on Monday.

He added that exports were only $36 billion when the ruling Justice and Development Party came to power 20 years ago, reports Xinhua news agency.

According to the President, the number of exporting firms grew from 33,523 in 2002 to more than 111,000 in 2022 and the number of cities engaged in exports increased from five to 24 in the same period.

Additionally, exports to the European Union, Turkey's biggest trading partner, recorded a year-on-year growth of 12 per cent in 2022, with the foreign trade surplus reaching over $10 billion, Erdogan said.

The Turkish leader underscored his country's efforts to conduct an increasing amount of trade in local currency, saying that the volume of foreign trade conducted in Turkish currency had reached 350 billion liras ($18 billion) in 2022.

Turkey is facing a number of economic problems that include the sharp depreciation of its currency, which lost nearly 70 per cent of its value in 2022, and high inflation rates, which stood at 84.39 per cent as of November last year.