Turkey: Foreign trade deficit drops 9.1 percent in June

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA

Turkey's foreign trade deficit dropped by 9.1 percent, year-on-year, in June, while its exports and imports reached $12.95 billion and $18.45 billion, respectively, Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced on Tuesday.

The country's exports decreased by 1.3 percent and its imports dropped by 3.8 percent in the month versus June 2017, TurkStat said.

Foreign trade deficit of Turkey in June was nearly $5.5 billion, down from over $6 billion the same month last year.

Turkey's six-month export rose by 6.3 percent to reach $82.2 billion and imports soared by 13.5 percent to nearly $123 billion, on a yearly basis.

The country's foreign trade deficit was $40.7 billion from January to June, up 31.6 percent compared to the same period 2017.

In June, Turkey's exports to the EU jumped by 6.4 percent to $6.6 billion versus the same month in 2017. The EU countries' share in Turkey's exports was 51.2 percent in the month, up from 47.5 percent in June 2017.

Turkey exported mostly to Germany with $1.3 billion, followed by the U.K. ($882 million), Italy ($815 million) and the U.S. ($627 million) in June.

Meanwhile, Turkey imported mostly from China with $1.84 billion, Russia ($1.79 billion), Germany ($1.8 billion) and the U.S. ($1.15 billion).

"The ratio of manufacturing industries products in total exports was 94.3 percent in June," TurkStat said.

It added that the ratio of high-technology and medium-high-technology products in manufacturing industries were 3.2 percent and 37.6 percent in June, respectively.

Manufacturing industries imports consisted of 79.9 percent of Turkey's total imports in the month; 13.6 percent of them were high-technology products and 42.6 percent were medium-high-technology products.

Turkey's exports were $157.05 billion and imports $233.79 billion while foreign trade deficit was $76.73 billion in 2017.