Turkiye’s exports increased by 13.1 percent in August from the same month of last year, reaching $21.3 billion, according to data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) released on Sept. 30.
The country’s imports amounted to $32.5 billion, exhibiting an annual increase of 40.4 billion.
Germany remained Turkiye’s largest export, followed by the U.S. and Iraq.
Exports to Germany and the U.S. stood at $1.66 billion and $1.48 billion, respectively. Iraq imported $1.26 billion worth of goods from Turkiye, while exports to the U.K. amounted to $1.1 billion.
Russia ranked fifth in the list at $949 million.
The European Union’s share in Turkiye’s total exports was 37.6 percent,or $8 billion in August, up from $7.78 billion a year ago.
On the imports front, Russian ranked first, followed by China and Germany, TÜİK said.
Turkiye’s imports from Russia amounted to $6.3 billion, while imports from China and Germany stood at $4.15 billion and $2 billion, respectively.
Imports from Switzerland and the U.S. were $1.75 billion and $1.3 billion, respectively.
Consequently, the country’s foreign trade deficit widened nearly 160 percent last month compared to August 2021 to stand at $11.2 billion.
The export-import coverage ratio declined from 81.4 percent last year to 65.6 percent.
Excluding energy products and non-monetary gold, imports were $21.45 billion, marking a 16.6 percent year-on-year increase.
The foreign trade deficit, excluding energy products and non-monetary gold, was $1.8 billion in August, according to TÜİK.
Turkiye’s capital goods imports rose by 33.9 percent year-on-year to $3.8 billion, while the increase in intermediate goods imports was 40.4 percent to $25.9 billion. Last month, the country also boosted its consumer goods purchase from other nations by 51 percent to $2.9 billion.
The share of the manufacturing sector in Turkiye’s total exports was 95 percent, followed by the agriculture sector at 2.5 percent.
From January to August, exports exhibited a strong 18.2 percent increase from the same period of 2021 to climb to $165.6 billion. The country’s imports soared nearly 41 percent on an annual basis in the first eight months of the year to $239 billion.
The foreign trade deficit rose by 146 percent year-on-year to $73.4 billion in January-August.
In its latest Medium-Term Program, the government forecast that exports would increase from an estimated $255 billion in 2022 to $265 billion next year. The government’s foreign trade gap estimates for 2022 and 2023 are $105 billion and $80 billion, respectively.