Turkey’s foreign trade deficit narrowed by almost 33% year-on-year in January, as exports surged and imports fell, official data showed Friday.

The gap fell to $3.03 billion in the month, down from $4.51 billion in January 2020, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced Friday.

Exports surged 2.3% on an annual basis to reach more than $15 billion last month, while imports slipped 5.9% to over $18 billion, the data showed.

The exports-to-imports coverage ratio increased to 83.2% last month, up from 76.5% in January 2020.

"Foreign trade surplus, excluding energy products and non-monetary gold, was $9 million in January 2021," TurkStat said.

The manufacturing sector was the best performer with a 93.8% share in the total exports.

The ratio of intermediate goods in total imports was 76.3% last month, according to the data.

At $1.45 billion, Germany was the main destination for Turkey’s exports in the month, while China was the main partner for imports at $2.2 billion.

The share of high-technology products in manufacturing industries’ exports was 3% last month, remaining stable on a yearly basis, TurkStat said.

The data also showed that the country’s energy import bill dropped by 35.8% to $2.63 billion in the first month of the year compared to last year.

The decline came as the country boosted its domestic and renewable energy production.

The energy accounted for 14.45% of the overall import figure.

The country’s crude oil imports also showed a 31.71% decrease compared to January 2020.

Turkey imported approximately 1.83 million tons of crude oil last month, down from 2.68 million tons in the same month last year.