A Turkish manufacturer finds a distributor in Southeast Asia. The buyer likes the product, the price is acceptable and the first order appears close. Then the real work begins.
The product may require another safety test. The label may need to be redesigned. A certificate accepted in Europe may not satisfy the national regulator. The distributor asks who will repair the machine if it breaks. The bank wants stronger payment guarantees. Shipping a small order costs more than expected, and the exporter discovers that the neighbouring ASEAN market uses a different registration process.
The tariff was easy to calculate. Everything around it was not.
This is the central weakness in Türkiye–ASEAN trade. Economic diplomacy still places considerable emphasis on tariff preferences, free trade agreements, business forums and headline trade targets. These tools are useful, but they do not address many of the costs that determine whether a company completes a first sale, returns for a second one or leaves the market altogether.
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Two-way trade between Türkiye and ASEAN increased from US$13.02 billion in 2023 to US$13.84 billion in 2024. Turkish investment flows into ASEAN also rose from US$106.5 million to US$410.4 million over the same period. The figures point to momentum, but they remain modest beside ASEAN’s overall trade and investment activity. More importantly, they say little about how many firms are building durable commercial relationships across the region.
Tariffs remain relevant, but tariff reduction alone is unlikely to transform the relationship.
Tariffs matter, but they do not explain enough
ASEAN’s own 2026 business bulletin argues that tariffs are no longer the main concern for companies trading within the bloc, after around 99 per cent of intra-ASEAN tariff rates were eliminated under the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement.
Türkiye does not enjoy the same treatment. Among ASEAN members, Türkiye currently has comprehensive bilateral free trade agreements only with Malaysia and Singapore, while negotiations with Indonesia remain ongoing. In most other ASEAN markets, Turkish goods do not benefit from a comprehensive bilateral FTA, although limited preferences may apply under other arrangements.
That gap should not be dismissed. Tariffs can make a Turkish product uncompetitive, especially in food, textiles, automotive products and other price-sensitive sectors.
Türkiye’s trade with Malaysia illustrates both the value and the limits of preferential access. Bilateral trade reached US$5.66 billion in 2025, but Turkish exports accounted for only US$629 million while imports exceeded US$5 billion. This does not mean the agreement failed — Malaysia supplies products Türkiye demands — but it shows that lower tariffs do not automatically produce more diversified trade, co-production or durable investment links.
An exporter still needs the right product, a trusted partner, regulatory approval, finance, logistics and after-sales capacity. An agreement can lower the border tax. It cannot build those capabilities for the firm.
ASEAN is integrated, but it is not one external market
The phrase “ASEAN market” can be misleading.
ASEAN has developed a dense regional economic architecture, but an outside company still deals with national customs administrations, product regulators, tax authorities and legal systems. A machine approved in Malaysia does not automatically enter Vietnam. A food label prepared for Indonesia may not work in Thailand. A local distributor that succeeds in the Philippines may have no useful network in Cambodia.
This fragmentation is visible in the ASEAN Trade Repository. The repository brings together information from national systems on tariffs, rules of origin, non-tariff measures, customs laws, documentary requirements, administrative rulings and authorised traders. Its structure is useful precisely because companies still have to understand how regional commitments are implemented through national rules.
Large multinationals can absorb this complexity through local lawyers, consultants and compliance teams. A medium-sized Turkish manufacturer may find that registration, testing and advisory costs erase the commercial value of a relatively small order.
A company may spend months discovering which authority is responsible for registration, whether a local importer must hold a licence, which laboratory can test the product and whether the packaging needs to be translated. Even when the final tariff is low, the cost of reaching the border can remain high.
ASEAN market access therefore cannot be treated mainly as a tariff negotiation; the more immediate task is reducing uncertainty.
Testing the same product twice
Standards and conformity assessment are among the clearest examples.
A technical standard tells a company what a product must do. Conformity assessment determines how the company proves that the product meets that requirement through testing, inspection or certification.
WTO research on trade concerns has found that conformity-assessment procedures generate proportionally more complaints than technical regulations themselves. Duplicate tests, delays, unclear certification rules and doubts about foreign laboratories can significantly raise trade costs.
ASEAN has developed mutual recognition arrangements and harmonised regulatory regimes in sectors including electrical and electronic equipment, automotive products, medicinal-product inspections, medical devices, prepared food and building materials.
The Turkish Accreditation Agency (TÜRKAK) accredits more than 2,000 conformity-assessment bodies and participates in the recognition arrangements of EA, IAF and ILAC. This provides a basis for technical confidence, but it does not give Turkish certificates automatic legal acceptance in ASEAN markets.
Ankara should propose a sector-specific laboratory partnership rather than a broad promise of mutual recognition.
Electrical equipment, machinery components and selected construction materials would be sensible starting points. Turkish and ASEAN laboratories could compare testing methods, conduct proficiency exercises and identify which reports already contain the information required by regulators on both sides.
The initial goal would be modest. Where testing requirements are technically equivalent, exporters should not have to repeat an expensive test solely because the original report comes from an unfamiliar laboratory.
Customs are becoming digital, but not yet simple
Documents are another source of cost.
ASEAN has made significant progress through the ASEAN Single Window. As of June 2025, all ten ASEAN members at the time were exchanging ATIGA electronic certificates of origin and ASEAN Customs Declaration Documents through the ASEAN Single Window. Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand had also begun exchanging electronic phytosanitary certificates.
The gains are measurable. ASEAN reported that more than one million electronic certificates of origin submitted since 2022 had saved businesses an estimated six million working days and US$150 million in costs.
But Turkish firms are outside much of this internal architecture.
An exporter may still provide invoices, certificates, transport records and customs documents through several channels. The same data may be entered by the exporter, freight forwarder, bank, importer and customs broker. A small error can hold up the shipment while storage costs accumulate.
Türkiye has relevant experience with electronic customs messaging through the New Computerised Transit System under the Common Transit Convention. Its institutional setting is different from ASEAN’s, but the practical issues are familiar: common document formats, electronic authentication, legal recognition and clear responsibility when information is wrong.
Türkiye should seek a technical dialogue under ASEAN’s ASW 2.0 roadmap. A pilot could test one or two document types — such as certificates of origin or selected regulatory certificates — with interested ASEAN members, without trying to connect entire national customs systems at once.
The measure of success would be simple: fewer manual entries, fewer rejected documents and faster clearance for participating companies.
Logistics do not end at the port
Geography is an obvious constraint, but logistics does not end when the shipment reaches port. Machinery requires spare parts and trained technicians; food products may require cold storage; software companies need local contracting and customer support. Export promotion should therefore help firms find service partners, warehouses and regulatory advisers, not only buyers.
Türkiye does not need a complete commercial infrastructure in every ASEAN country. It does need sector-specific regional service points, chosen according to the markets and industries involved.
Payment risk can cancel an otherwise viable sale
Trade finance is another overlooked barrier.
A smaller Turkish company may receive a genuine order but lack the working capital to purchase inputs, manufacture the goods and wait for payment after delivery. The ASEAN buyer may also struggle to obtain credit or may request payment terms that the exporter cannot accept.
Banks become cautious when the counterparties are unfamiliar, the order is relatively small and legal recovery across jurisdictions is uncertain.
Viable transactions can therefore fail before production even begins.
A recent World Bank–WTO study of Cambodia, Lao PDR and Viet Nam underlines why trade finance matters: it fills the period between production, shipment and payment while allowing banks and insurers to manage risks that individual firms cannot carry alone.
Türk Eximbank, willing ASEAN banks and trade insurers should develop products for the kinds of transactions that smaller exporters actually undertake. A first order worth a few hundred thousand dollars does not need a complicated project-finance structure. It may need receivables insurance, a working-capital loan, buyer credit or a guarantee accepted by a local bank.
Finance should follow a verified commercial relationship. It should not begin with a large new fund looking for projects to justify its existence.
Do not begin with a grand ASEAN-wide agreement
A Türkiye–ASEAN free trade agreement (FTA) may eventually be worth exploring, but it should not become a reason to postpone practical cooperation. Such a negotiation would be complex, and Türkiye’s external trade policy is also shaped by its customs union with the European Union. Türkiye’s customs union with the European Union also shapes its approach to third-country FTAs, with Ankara generally seeking to launch parallel negotiations as the EU negotiates its own agreements.
Standards mapping, laboratory cooperation, digital documents and after-sales support can begin without settling every tariff line. Machinery, electrical equipment and processed food would make useful test sectors because each raises a different combination of standards, servicing, customs and sanitary issues.
Build a market-access architecture
A time-bound Türkiye–ASEAN market-access pilot should bring these strands together. It would produce a sectoral barrier map for a few product groups, connect selected testing bodies, test the electronic exchange of one or two trade documents and provide commercial aftercare to participating firms. The pilot should use the ASEAN Trade Repository and existing national systems rather than build another standalone database.
Its performance should be judged through completed and repeated transactions: approval times, rejected documents, test reports accepted without full repetition and firms that establish durable distribution or maintenance arrangements.These indicators may look ordinary. They reveal whether trade architecture is actually working.
Lowering uncertainty may matter more than lowering duty
Tariffs remain visible because they are easy to express as a percentage.
The other costs are harder to see. They appear in consultant fees, repeated tests, warehouse charges, missed delivery dates, unreturned emails, rejected certificates and the price of keeping a technician near the customer.
For some Turkish exporters, these costs may matter more than a small reduction at the border.
Türkiye and ASEAN already have trade repositories, customs initiatives, standards bodies and business channels. The missing task is to connect them around real firms and real shipments. A lower tariff can make a product cheaper, but only a functioning market-access architecture can turn an interested buyer into a completed — and repeated — sale.
