The Turkish states would generally export livestock, leather, stout leather, furs, and animal products to the neighbouring nations and they would import cereals and clothes in return. The trade agreements were concluded on these principles among the Asian Hun, Gokturk, Uighur States and the China and between the Western Hun State and the Byzantine. The Turks would import rice, silk, silken fabrics and barley from China and the other needs from Roma and the Byzantine. Turks would meet the needs of these states that were provided by the Turks. An article of the Margus Agreement (434) was related with the arrangement of the trade relations between the Byzantine-Hun States.
China would give utmost importance to the trade activities that took place in the border districts. According to the agreement dated 734, it was resolved that the city of So-fang in Ling-çu would be the common Market place. The importance of the trade has also been cited within the Orhun inscriptions for the maintenance of the existence of the state and the prosperity of the people.
However, there were great income means that caused severe competition between the Turks and their neighbours. The most important means was the famous caravan trade over the Silk Road that extended from China towards the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. The Central Asian region that was the passage of this road caused the collapse of Ak-Hun-Eftalik State as a result of the alliance of Istemi-Anuşirvan when the 1st Gokturk State was established and the conclusion of international political relations such as the Turkish-Byzantine agreements. This Central Asian region had always had the characteristics of a main target that the Turkish and Chinese policies competed for domination for a period of approximately 1000 years since the period of the Hun State until the end of the Uighur Khanate.
Turks had never intended to invade the entire China. Similarly, the Chinese people had never thought about the expansion of the borders of the state towards Orhun and Ötüken that was the region of the capital cities of the Turkish khanates. As long as China had the domination over the transit of the Silk Road against the Turks, China preferred to follow a defensive policy. Turks had tried to attenuate the power of China with the frequent pressures that they imposed over China and to establish the Turkish domination in the Central Asia.
This target that was accomplished in the period of the Hun and 1st Gokturk State was repeated by the political organisations founded by the Uighur people in the Eastern Turkestan, the Turgis people in the Western Turkestan and especially Karluk people in the 2nd half of the 9th century. Finally, the Muslims had won the Talas War by means of the support of the Karluk people in the year of 751 and therefore, China was disconnected from the western Asia. This situation gave way for the development and prosperity of the Uighur, Karluk and Oguz Turkish cities and countries in the Central and Western Asia as we have stated above. As it has been known, the Khazar Turkish State was located in the intersection point of he intercontinental routes among China, the Central Asia, near east and the Eastern and Central Europe and Scandinavia. With this strategic location, the Khazar State was a state that was based on policy and the capital city of Han-balık and the city of Bulgar that was the capital city of the Idyll Bulgarians had played important role about this issue.
There was an active trade activity over the route that started from the Khazar and Bulgar countries and reached to China and the Amur River over the Ural-South, Siberia-Altay-Syan Mountains. This road that was parallel to the Silk Road in the north was also called as the "fur-route". The main commercial goods of this road included the furs of the red squirrels, martens, foxes, sables, beavers, lynxes, etc. The principal merchants were the Ogur people (Western Turks) and the Bulgarian Turks that developed as a branch of these people. The Danube Bulgarians that went from the plain lands in the north of the Black Sea towards the Balkans had developed in respect of economy as the dominant powers of the European-Byzantine route. Thus, they founded the richest cities of the period in the Balkans and the Eastern Europe (the cities of Preslav and Pliska).