By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA
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.
