Turkish exports up 10 pct in first 11 months of 2017

Between January and November, exports increased by 10.4 pct to reach $143B; foreign trade volume stood at $354B

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's exports in the first eleven months of 2017 amounted to over $143.2 billion -- a 10.4 percent rise compared with the same period in 2016, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced Friday.

The country's foreign trade volume reached $353.9 billion between January and November this year, marking a 15 percent annual increase, according to provisional data produced by TurkStat and the Ministry of Customs and Trade.

Turkish imports climbed 16.9 percent to $210.7 billion, amounting to a foreign trade deficit of $67.5 billion over the same period.

TurkStat said Germany was Turkey's top export market, at $13.8 billion, or a 9.7 percent share of total exports, while $67.4 billion worth of Turkish exports were delivered to EU28 countries from January to November this year.

In the same period, Turkey imported the most from China ($21.2 billion), Germany ($19.1 billion) and Russia ($17.6 billion).

-Manufacturing dominates exports

The manufacturing industry accounted for the biggest share of total exports, at almost 94 percent, followed by agriculture and forestry (3.2 percent), and mining and quarrying (2.2 percent).

The share of high technology products in manufacturing industry exports was 3.8 percent while the exports shares of medium-high and low technology products were 34.4 and 33.3 percent, respectively.

Regarding imports, intermediate goods represented the lion's share with 73.7 percent, reaching $155.2 billion, followed by capital goods (13.9 percent, $29.2 billion) and consumption goods (12.2 percent, $25.7 billion).

TurkStat data revealed that the manufacturing industry had the largest share in Turkey's imports (81.5 percent, $171.8 billion), of which $70.9 billion were medium-high tech imports, followed by medium-low tech ($55.7 billion) and high tech ($25.7 billion).

Last month, Turkey's exports rose 11.2 percent year-on-year to reach $14.2 billion, while imports climbed to $20.5 billion -- a 21.3 percent hike .

"In November 2017 foreign trade deficit was $6.32 billion with a 52.4% increase compared with November 2016," TurkStat said.

The percentage of imports covered by exports was 69.2, falling from 75.5 percent in the same month of 2016.

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