Turkey exported vehicles worth $5.1 billion (TL 36 billion) to 109 countries in the first seven months of 2020, according to data from the Uludağ Exporters Association.

The share of the automotive sector in Turkey’s total exports stood at 39.3%. France became the favorite market in this period with exports totaling $829 million, which was followed by Germany with $511 million and the U.K. with $452 million.

Other countries taking top places in Turkey’s automotive export in the first seven months were Italy, Spain, Israel, Belgium, Slovenia and Poland. Eight of the nine countries the industry exported vehicles to worth more than $200 million in January-July period were EU members. Exports to Egypt saw a growth of 74%, rising from $100 million to $175 million.

Turkey also saw high demand in the domestic market, which was followed by a significant rise in June on the back of the easing of strict coronavirus lockdown measures in the country and cheap loan packages offered by public banks. Passenger car and light commercial vehicle sales in Turkey jumped by 66% year-on-year in June to 70,973 units, according to the Automotive Distributors Association (ODD). Passenger car sales were up 58.4% to 57,067 and light commercial vehicle sales soared 108.7% year-on-year to 13,906 in the month.