Türkiye’s trade gap narrowed by approximately 30% in the first 10 months of the year when compared to the same period a year earlier, official data by the country’s statistical authority showed on Thursday.
In the January-October 2024 period, the foreign trade deficit was $65.85 billion, according to data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), marking a 30.1% year-on-year drop.
The data showed in October alone that the foreign trade deficit was $5.9 billion. This correlated to a 10.5% decrease compared to the same month in 2023.
In October 2024, the exports to imports coverage ratio was realized at 79.9% compared to 77.5% in October last year, TurkStat said.
A positive trend was observed when looking at the exports-imports coverage ratio for 10 months as well, and it was realized at 76.7% versus 69.0% in January-October 2023, according to the data.
Türkiye has seen a relatively long period of solid exports, starting from May this year, which resulted in a more positive trade balance.
In the January-October period, exports were $216.2 billion with a 3.1% increase and imports were around $282 billion with a 7.2% decrease compared with January-October 2023, TurkStat data revealed.
In October alone, exports stood at $23.5 billion, with a rise of 3.1%, while imports remained unchanged compared to the same month in 2023 and were realized at $29.4 billion.
The foreign trade deficit, excluding energy products and non-monetary gold, was $627 million in October.
The top receiver of Turkish goods last month was Germany, with nearly $1.8 billion. Other major destinations that got most goods from Türkiye included the U.S. with $1.56 billion, the U.K. with nearly $1.3 billion, Iraq with $1.24 billion and Italy with nearly $1.2 billion, the data showed. The ratio of the first five countries in total exports was 30.0% in October 2024.
Similarly, these five countries also stood at the forefront of Türkiye’s exports for the first 10 months.
Türkiye imported the most from China in October, at $4.2 billion, Russia with $3.1 billion, Germany with $2.3 billion, Italy with $1.78 billion and the U.S. with nearly $1.3 billion.
