Despite seeing a slight decrease in its foreign sales performance, automotive industry saw its second highest September month ever from an exports point of view.

What's more, the locomotive of the Turkish economy managed to post a serious increase in its sales particularly to the Middle East and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a data compiled from Turkish Exporters' Assembly (TİM) and Uludağ Automotive Industry Exporters' Association (OİB) showed.

The industry saw a 0.4% decline in its exports in September to $2.59 billion, with its overall exports in the first nine months of the current year dropping by 3.7% to nearly $22.55 billion, according to the data.

Iran was the market to where the industry managed to increase its exports the most last month. Sales to Iran skyrocketed by 388% to some $23.11 million in September, while eight-month exports reached $92.71 million.

Among others, sales to Israel last month saw a 198% rise to $60.54 million, while nine-month exports totaled some $540.25 million, a 35.5% year-on-year increase. Exports to Iraq also posted a noteworthy increase, surging by 35% to $24.37 million last month and by 60% to over $183 million overall between January and September. The industry also saw increase in sales to multiple other markets in the first nine months, including Azerbaijan (144.5%), Ukraine (4.5%) and Russia (15%).

On the basis of the group of countries, automotive sales to the Middle East were up 71% year-on-year in September to around $148.85 million, while they totaled nearly $1.19 billion between January and September, an 8% year-on-year increase.

On the other hand, exports to CIS countries increased by 63.5% to $116.18 million last month and by 18% to $791.5 million in the first nine months of the current year.

In addition to the Middle East and CIS, a noteworthy increase was also seen in exports to countries such as the Netherlands, Romania, the U.S. and Egypt.