The total number of livestock animals in Turkey reached 59.7 million this June, a 6.8 percent rise since the beginning of 2017, according to official livestock production statistics released on Tuesday.

The number of bovine animals, including cattle and buffalo, reached 14.8 million heads in June, up 4.2 percent in the first six months, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.

The central Anatolian province of Konya, Turkey's biggest by area, has the largest number of cattle with 0.8 million heads, followed by the eastern province of Erzurum (0.7 million heads), and the Aegean province of Izmir with 0.6 million heads.

The total number of ovine animals rose 7.8 percent over the same period, reaching 44.6 million heads, including 33.6 million sheep and 11 million goats.

Van, a province in eastern Anatolia, had the top number of sheep (2.7 million heads), while the Mediterranean province of Antalya had the highest number of goats, with 0.8 million.

TurkStat also said that there were 0.3 million heads of donkeys, horses, mules, camels and pigs in Turkey as of June.

Meanwhile, the number of poultry animals - chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese - rose to nearly 351 million heads, up 5.2 percent from the end of 2016.

Approximately 231 million heads of broiler hens and 115 million heads of laying hens were counted under chickens, which constitutes 98.6 percent of all poultry animals in Turkey.

TurkStat releases livestock production statistics twice a year. Data are collected through province and district directorates of the Food, Agriculture and Livestock Ministry.

In the first six months of this year, Turkey's livestock exports stood at $16.2 million, while the country imported $548 million worth of livestock, according to TurkStat.

Last year, Turkey imported around $600 million worth of livestock and exported nearly $30 million.

The share of the sub-group "agriculture, forestry and fishing" in the country's semi-annual gross domestic product was 3.5 percent, at around TL 49 billion (some $13.5 billion).

In 2016, all economic activities for agriculture, forestry, and fishing, which also include raising livestock, had a 6.2 percent share of the nation's economy, totaling nearly TL 161.3 billion (around $53.4 billion).