Istanbul’s Laleli, Osmanbey and Merter districts expect up to a 40 per cent decline in overall trade volume over the course of 2020, in the wake of the normalization process after the coronavirus outbreak shuttered business activity.

According to a report published by Turkish daily Dünya, the number of closed businesses in Laleli has even increased after June 1, when the country started to reopen its economy by gradually lifting most of the previously imposed restrictions.

Gıyaseddin Eyyüpkoca, chairman of the Laleli Industrialists and Businessmen's Association (LASİ-AD) which represents some 2,500 tradesmen in Laleli, said the district recorded approximately $3 billion (TL 20 billion) of trade in 2019. Eyyüpkoca told Dünya that a significant part of the trade was carried out during the coronavirus restrictions through applications such as WhatsApp.

Eyyüpkoca, however, noted that the full normalization is also up to developments in countries such as Romania, Poland, Serbia and Russia, which are among their important commercial partners, noting that they had worked hard for the summer season, however, all those products remained unsold.