Turkey’s foreign trade deficit reached $5 billion (TL 37.1 billion) in November, said the country’s statistical authority on Thursday.

The figure posted a 153.5% rise compared to the same month last year, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).

Turkey’s exports fell 0.9% to $16.1 billion and imports climbed 15.9% to $21.1 billion compared with November 2019, the data showed.

The exports-to-imports coverage ratio slipped to 76.2% last month, down from 89.1% last November.

This November, the country’s main trading partner Germany received $1.5 billion worth of Turkish exports or a 9.4% share of total exports.

It was followed by the United Kingdom with $1.1 billion, Iraq with $953 million and the United States with $905 million, TurkStat said.

The top country for Turkey’s imports was Germany with $2.4 billion last month, followed by China, Russia and Switzerland with $2.2 billion, $1.7 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively.

In the first 11 months of the year, the trade deficit climbed 82.5% to $45.344 billion amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The country’s exports reached $151.6 billion, decreasing by 8.3%, while imports totaled $197 billion, up 3.5% during the 11-month period.

Measures to curb COVID-19 have affected key tourism revenues in the country, reliant on imports, eventually causing an increase in the trade deficit.

"With a tight monetary policy stance (and) potentially falling current account deficit, we believe that the nominal strengthening in the lira may linger for some time more and (it) may remain relatively stable during in 2021," Gedik Investment Research said in a note.

Istanbul’s main BIST-100 stock index has also rallied sharply since the start of November and is set to end the year almost 30% higher.

At 2:50 p.m. local time, the Turkish lira stood at 7.45 against the U.S. dollar.