Turkey’s foreign trade deficit soars 108.8 pct in January on annual basis

Turkey’s foreign trade deficit soars 108.8 pct in January on annual basis

ANKARA

Turkey’s foreign trade deficit soared 108.8 percent in January compared to the same month of 2017, reaching $9.06 billion, according to data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK).

According to provisional data produced with the cooperation of TÜİK and the Customs and Trade Ministry in January, exports were $12.5 billion with a 10.7 percent increase and imports were $21.5 billion with a 38 percent increase compared with January 2017. 

According to preliminary data from the Customs and Trade Ministry released on Feb. 2, the foreign trade gap soared in January mainly due to a significant rise in gold imports and energy costs.

The biggest import item in January was energy, according to the ministry data. Turkey imported energy products worth $3.63 billion in the first month of 2018, with a 13.25 percent yearly increase.

Among the largest five import items, precious metals ranked the second and saw the steepest year-on-year increase in imports. Turkey imported $2.37 billion worth precious metals in January, with a 363 percent year-on-year increase.

TÜİK data on Feb. 28 showed that exports to the EU28 countries, Turkey’s main trading partner, climbed 23.1 percent to $5.2 billion.

The proportion of EU countries was 52.3 percent in January 2018, while it was 47 percent in January 2017, TÜİK stated.

Germany was the top export market with $1.34 billion, a 10.8 percent share of total exports, followed by the U.K. with $747 million, Italy with $742 million, and Iraq with $639 million.

In the same period, Turkey imported the most from China ($2.18 billion), Russia ($2.05 billion), Germany ($1.63 billion), and the U.S. ($1.12 billion).