Türkiye's trade gap narrowed 15.7% on a yearly basis to $5.6 billion in May, mainly due to the calendar effect and fewer working days during the month, marking a nine-month low, Trade Minister Ömer Bolat said on Thursday.
The deficit decreased as both exports and imports fell in the month, with imports showing a starker decline of nearly 11%.
Announcing the preliminary foreign trade in Ankara, the minister said that exports dropped by 9.3% to $22.5 billion in May, while imports fell by 10.7% to $28.1 billion in the same period.
Last month had a long 9-day holiday that coincided with Eid al-Adha or Qurban Bayram, the second of two major holidays observed among Muslims, which reflected on the figures.
Starting his speech, Bolat noted that the world economy is going through a difficult period, with ongoing geopolitical challenges and disruptions in logistics chains, and he said that despite an environment where global economic growth forecasts are being revised downwards, Türkiye continues to show resilient performance in growth, employment, and exports.
He recalled the national income grew by 2.5% in the first quarter of the year, marking 23 consecutive quarters of growth, referring to the recently shared gross domestic product (GDP) data.
"In May 2025, we broke the monthly export record in the history of the republic with $24.8 billion. Official holidays in May naturally had a negative impact on exports; however, by also reducing imports and our foreign trade deficit, there was an improvement in the export-to-import coverage ratio," the minister said.
Export-to-import coverage ratio surged by 1.2 points to 80.1% last month, reaching the highest level in the past 20 months.
"In May, exports reached $22.5 billion, a decrease of 9.3%. Our daily average exports reached $1.3 billion," he added.
Bolat highlighted that there are no national or religious holidays in June, and noted that export figures are expected to increase this month compared to last year, and that higher numbers could be observed on an annualized basis.
He also stated that on May 22, a new all-time high daily export figure of $2.4 billion was reached, and added: "Our exports to Gulf countries dropped by 30% monthly in March due to shockwaves from conflicts. However, we recovered in April and saw an increase. A similar trend continues in May. Exports are actually increasing, but the calendar can sometimes have negative effects."
Trade Ministry, in a written statement, separately said that despite the calendar effect, this May marked the third-best May ever, considering export figures. It also noted that the month had six fewer working days compared to last year.
Bolat said Türkiye has also made significant progress in exporting medium-high and high-tech products, reporting that the export share of such products reached 44% in the January-May period.
He stated that imports fell by 10.7% to $28.1 billion in May, with exports decreasing by $2.3 billion while imports dropped by $3.4 billion, thus improving the foreign trade deficit.
Bolat also noted that imports fell by 0.8% in the January-May period, explaining that the reduction in gold imports also played a role in this decline.
"There has also been some deceleration in automotive imports in the first five months. These acted as a brake on the increase in imports. On the other hand, our petroleum imports increased by nearly $2.5 billion," he said.
Bolat stressed that a much clearer trade picture will emerge at the end of June as most of the calendar effects will disappear.
"On an annualized basis, we have $273.5 billion in exports, a modest increase of $250 million. However, we will make the real assessment when we complete the first half of the year," he suggested.
He also informed that the annualized imports increased by 4.2% to $367.2 billion.
He also suggested that the trade deficit is close to the levels seen at the end of December last year, pointing out that at the end of the first five months, the annualized foreign trade gap has increased by only $1.45 billion.