Turkey's exports climb above $100B in Jan-Aug

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's exports between January and August this year stood at $103.3 billion, marking a 10.8 percent annual hike, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced Friday.

Provisional data, generated by TurkStat and the Ministry of Customs and Trade, revealed that the country's foreign trade volume hit $252.3 billion in the first eight months of the year with an increase of 12.5 percent on a yearly basis.

Over the same period, the country's imports rose 13.5 percent to $148.9 billion, recording an eight-month foreign trade deficit of $45.6 billion.

TurkStat said the percentage of imports covered by exports was 69.4 in the same period.

The EU received 46.2 percent of all Turkish exports between January and August this year, amounting to $47.7 billion while Germany continued to be Turkey's largest export market with $9.78 billion, taking a 9.5 percent share of total exports.

Other top export markets were the United Arab Emirates with $7.37 billion, followed by Iraq ($6.36 billion), U.K. ($6.23 billion) and the U.S. ($5.78 billion).

Meanwhile, Turkey's top import source was China ($15 billion), followed by Germany ($13.2 billion) and Russia ($12.1 billion).

- Leading sector: manufacturing

Between January and August, manufacturing industry products dominated the total exports with a 94.2 percent share, followed by agriculture and forestry exports (2.9 percent) and mining and quarrying exports (2.2 percent).

The ratio of high technology products in manufacturing industry exports was 3.8 percent in the same period while the exports shares of medium-high and low technology products were 33.8 and 33.2 percent, respectively.

As for imports, intermediate goods were the top item, representing a 73.9 percent share worth some $110 billion, followed by capital goods (13.8 percent) with a value of $20.5 billion, and consumption goods (12 percent, $17.8 billion).

Based on tech intensity, TurkStat figures showed that manufacturing industry products had the largest share in total imports with 81.4 percent, worth $121.3 billion. Of this, $49.6 billion were medium-high tech imports, followed by medium-low tech imports ($39.8 billion), high tech ($17.8 billion) and low tech ($13.9 billion) imports.

- August figures

Last month, Turkey's exports increased by 12.3 percent to $13.3 billion while imports rose to $19.1 billion, up 15.3 percent, compared to the same month in 2016.

In August 2017, foreign trade deficit was $5.87 billion with a 22.8 percent hike over July 2016, TurkStat said.

The institute noted that the percentage of imports covered by exports was 69.3 last month, down from 71.2 percent in the same month last year.

Turkey exported around $6 billion worth of goods to the EU in August, making the 28-member bloc the country's top export market with a 45.3 percent share.

Turkey's exports reached their highest level in 2014 with $157.6 billion, and stood at $143.8 billion in 2015 while the value was $142.5 billion last year, according to TurkStat.