Trade deficit widens to $90 bln this year

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Turkey’s trade deficit widened to $8 billion in October, a 27 percent rise compared to $6.3 billion in the same month last year, figures by the country’s official statistic agency (TÜİK) published yesterday showed.
The deficit, however, marked the lowest level since March and a slowdown from the record $10.4 billion trade gap in September this year.
The trade deficit reached a level of $90.2 billion in the first 10 months of 2011, marking a 63.5 percent increase on the same figures in 2010.
Meanwhile, the country’s exports increased 8.9 percent to $11.9 billion, whereas imports increased by 15.1 percent to $19.9 billion in October, compared to the same month in 2010, according to TÜİK data.
Seasonally adjusted figures for exports and imports increased by 8.9 and 10.6 percent respectively for the same period.

Germany largest buyer of exports
The share of Turkish exports to the EU, which was about 48 percent in October 2010, fell to 44.2 percent in October, with Germany taking the largest share. Exports to Germany grew 0.7 percent to $1.2 billion. Iraq, the United Kingdom, Italy and Russia followed.
In the year’s first 10 months, Turkish exports increased to a total of $92.68 billion, 20.2 percent higher compared to the same period in 2010.
Data on imports showed the largest amount came from Russia, increasing 21.5 percent to $2.33 billion in October 2011, compared to the same period last year, according to TÜİK figures. Germany and China followed with $1.86 billion and $1.74 billion imports to Turkey in October.
Turkey’s imports totaled $147.85 billion in the year’s first 10 months, growing 36.3 percent compared to the same period last year.

Intermediary goods imports
TÜİK figures also showed that the imports of intermediary goods, which make up 72 percent of all Turkish imports, increased by 36.8 percent in the period between January and October, compared to the same period last year. Meanwhile, imports of capital goods increased by 41.1 percent for the same period.
“The slowdown in the annual growth of imports of intermediary and capital goods compared to realizations in the period between January and September show that the growth rate for the coming period will also draw backward, which goes parallel to our expectations,” Serkan Özcan, chief economist at Vakıfbank, said in a note to investors yesterday.