UPDATES WITH DETAILS; ADDS CUMULATIVE FIGURES FOR JAN-OCT PERIOD
By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA (AA) – Turkey's foreign trade deficit in October fell 93.8 percent year-on-year, the country's statistical authority announced on Friday.
The country's foreign trade deficit in October totaled $456 million, improving from $7.3 billion deficit a year ago, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).
Last month, Turkey's exports hit $15.72 billion — up 13 percent on a yearly basis –, as imports dropped to $16.17 billion with an annual decline of 23.8 percent.
“In October 2018, exports coverage imports was 97.2 percent, while it was 65.6 percent in October 2017, ” TurkStat said.
Turkey's top partner for exports was Germany with $1.46 billion last month, followed by the U.K. ($1.07 billion), Italy ($877 million) and Iraq with $852 million.
“In October 2018, the top country for Turkey's imports was Russia with $1.86 billion.
“The country was followed by Germany with $1.56 billion, China with $1.37 billion and the U.S. with $883 million, ” the institute said.
– January-October period
Turkey's exports amounted to $138.7 billion in the 10-month period, marking an annual hike of 7.6 percent.
Imports totaled $190.3 billion — almost no change compared with $190.2 billion in January-October period last year.
Consequently, the country's foreign trade balance showed a deficit of $51.6 billion in the 10-month period, falling 15.7 percent on a yearly basis.
The EU was the top trade partner of Turkey, as exports to the EU were $69.8 billion — 50.3 percent of all exports — and imports from the EU were $69.1 billion.
Near and Middle Eastern countries with some $27.3 billion and African countries with around $11.6 billion were the other largest export markets for Turkish products.
On the imports side, the EU was followed by Asian countries with nearly $60.2 billion.
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.
