Turkey's machinery exports surpassed $1.3 billion in the first month of 2019, an exporters' association said yesterday.

The sector's exports jumped by 12 percent over the same period last year, the Machinery Exporters' Association (MAİB) said in a press release.

Germany, the U.S., the U.K., Italy and France were the main destinations for exports in January, the press release read.

Kutlu Karavelioğlu, the chairman of the MAIB, said January figures support the machinery export target of $20 billion for 2019.

"The Turkish machinery industry is a well-accepted sector in the markets of developing countries with its high-technology substructure," he said.

"We aim to raise the market diversity of the Turkish machinery sector," he noted.

The machinery industry was one of the three segments of the Turkish industry that saw the highest increase in exports in 2018.

It increased its exports by 15 percent in 2018, reaching $17.1 billion, according to official data.

Accounting for 10.1 percent of Turkey's total exports, the machinery industry raised the export-to-import ratio to 64 percent in 2018.

The industry exports 60 percent of its products to the EU and the U.S.

The industry now aims to double its exports in five years while maintaining its annual growth rate of 15 percent and reach $34 billion by 2023.

Turkey's exports reached an all-time high of $168.1 billion, a 7.1 percent year-on-year increase in 2018, supporting the decrease in the foreign trade deficit by 28.4 percent to $55 billion, official data showed. Imports decreased by 4.6 percent to $223.1 billion.

The export-import coverage ratio increased by 8.2 percentage points compared to 2017, rising to 75.3 percent. The overall foreign trade volume rose slightly by 0.1 percent to $391.2 billion.