As you all know, the monthly export figures are first announced by the Turkish Exporters’ Assembly, and then TurkStat releases the revised data that reveals Turkey’s current trade performance, according to which, our exports increased by 3.0% in October compared to the same month of the previous year, reaching 21 billion 328 million dollars, while imports increased by 31.4% to 29 billion 202 million dollars.
From January to October 2022, exports increased by 15.4% to 209 billion 394 million dollars, compared to the same period of the previous year while imports increased by 39.4%, amounting to 300 billion 443 million dollars.
The interesting thing is that, in October, Turkey’s trade deficit increased by 421.7 percent, compared to the same month of the previous year, in terms of absolute figures, from 1 billion 509 million dollars to 7 billion 874 million dollars. The export-import ratio was 93.2% in October last year, but it has dropped to 73% in October this year.
TurkStat also announced that our trade deficit increased by 168.3% in January-October period, rising from 34 billion dollars to 92 billion dollars, in rough figures. While the ratio of exports to imports, on the other hand, was 84.3% in the same period last year, it decreased to 69.7% this year.
In October 2022, Turkey exported mostly to Germany ($1.7B), followed by Iraq ($1.4B), the United States ($1.3B), the Russian Federation ($1.2B), and the United Kingdom ($1.1B). Our exports to these five countries account for 31.3% of Turkey’s total exports.
From January to October 2022, Turkey exported mostly to Germany again, achieving an export revenue of $17.5B, followed by the United States (more than $14B), Iraq ($11.3B), the United Kingdom ($11B), and Italy ($10.2B). Turkish exports to these countries account for 30.5% of its total exports.
“Trade Surplus Against The US And The UK.”
Now let’s take a quick look at the imports:
In October, Turkey imported mostly from the Russian Federation ($5B), China ($2.9B), Switzerland ($2.4B), Germany ($2B), and the United States ($1.2B).Imports from these countries account for 46% of Turkey’s total imports.
From January to October 2022, Turkey imported mostly from the Russian Federation again (nearly $50B), followed by China ($34.5B), Germany ($19.3B), the US ($13B), and Italy ($11.5B). Imports from these five countries account for 42.6% of Turkey’s total imports.
Based on this data, we could say that Turkey has been running a huge trade deficit with Russia and China among these five countries, however, we might be able to improve our trade deficit with Italy and Germany. These statistics also reveal that Turkey has a trade surplus against the US and the UK.
We all know the real reason behind our growing trade deficit is the volatility in energy and commodity markets, so considering some promising figures in these reports, we could say that our currently declining trade performance may soon turn into a recovery process.
