UPDATE WITH MORE DETAILS AND CUMULATIVE FIGURES FOR JANUARY-SEPTEMBER
By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA (AA) – Turkey's foreign trade deficit saw an annual fall of 77.1 percent in September, the country's statistical authority announced on Wednesday.
Last month, Turkey's exports went up 22.4 percent year-on-year to $14.45 billion, while imports decreased by 18.3 percent to $16.3 billion.
In September, the country's foreign trade deficit amounted to $1.87 billion, down from $8.17 billion in the same month last year.
“In September 2018, exports coverage imports was 88.5 percent while it was 59.1 percent in September 2017, ” TurkStat said.
Official data showed that Germany with $1.42 billion was the top market for Turkish exports last month.
“The country was followed by the U.K. with $1.05 billion, Italy with $816 million and Iraq with $719 million, ” TurkStat said.
The institute said the top country for Turkey’s imports was Russia with $1.7 billion in September, followed by China ($1.5 billion), Germany ($1.4 billion) and the U.S. with $1.1 billion.
– January-September period
In the nine-month period, exports totaled $123.04 billion with an annual hike of 7 percent, and imports were $174.16 billion, up 3.1 percent over the same period.
As a result, Turkey's foreign trade balance in January-September posted a deficit of $51.1 billion — down 5.2 percent –, as the deficit was $53.9 billion over the same period last year.
Exports to Turkey's major trade partner, the EU, totaled $61.9 billion or accounted for 50.4 percent of all exports, while the country's imports from the bloc were $63.4 billion.
Near and Middle Eastern region was the second largest export market for Turkish products with some $21.5 billion, followed by the African countries with nearly $10.3 billion.
The EU was followed by the countries in Asia with an amount of $55.2 billion on the imports side.
In 2014, Turkey's exports hit an all-time high of $157.6 billion while the figure was nearly $157 billion last year.
Over the past five years, the highest export-to-import ratio on a yearly basis was recorded in 2016 with 71.8 percent, while Turkey's foreign trade deficit has fallen from $99.8 billion in 2013 to $76.8 billion in 2017.
