Turkey’s exports started the new year with the highest monthly figure ever as sales surpassed $15 billion (TL 107 billion) in January, the country’s trade minister announced Tuesday.
Sales increased by 2.5% year-on-year in the first month of 2021, Ruhsar Pekcan told a meeting in the capital Ankara, revealing preliminary Trade Ministry data.
“This figure shows that the growth process seen in the last quarter of last year continues in our exports,” Pekcan said.
Imports were down 5.6% to amount to $18.1 billion, the data showed.
With a fall in imports and a rise in exports, the foreign trade deficit ended up shrinking 32% on annual basis to over $3 billion.
Pekcan said this was a “development that supports the macroeconomic stability of our country.”
The export-to-import coverage ratio increased by 6.5 percentage points to as high as 83% last month. Excluding gold, this figure stood at 87%, Pekcan said.
“The January figures indicate important and successful performance amid the ongoing uncertainty in the global economy, restrictions imposed by our trading partners due to the second wave of the coronavirus, and supply constraints such as delays in delivery times and increases in logistics costs,” the minister noted.
Exporters have left behind a year overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic that ended up bringing severe contraction in foreign demand in the country’s main export markets, especially the European Union.
Measures to curb COVID-19 have affected key tourism revenues in the country, reliant on imports, eventually causing an increase in the trade deficit.
Sales rebounded in the second half of the year before many countries went on to reimpose lockdown measures to limit the spread of the pandemic.
The month of January followed the highest December exports ever as sales surged by 16% to $17.84 billion.
The outbreak led to a 6.26% drop in exports but did not prevent Turkey from closing 2020 with $169.5 billion in foreign sales, exceeding the target of $165.9 billion in the medium-term program.
Imports were up 4.3% to reach $219.4 billion. The trade deficit widened by 69.12% to $49.9 billion last year.
Turkish exports in 2019 were around $180.8 billion while imports totaled $210.3 billion.
Depending on the pandemic, Pekcan said Turkey is optimistic about achieving the export target of $184 billion this year.
