Turkey's foreign trade deficit shrinks by 13.4 pct in January

Foreign trade deficit decreased by 13.4 percent from $4.3 to $3.8 billion in January 2016 when compared to January 2015, according to data released jointly by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) and the Ministry of Customs and Trade. Thus, in January, exports were $9.6 billion with a 22 percent decrease, and imports were $13.4 billion with a 19.7 percent decrease compared to January 2015. Exports coverage imports were at 71.8 percent in January compared to 73.9 percent the same month of last year.

When compared with January 2015, exports to the 28 countries of the European Union shrank by 9.7 percent, from $5.6 billion to $4.8 billion and the percentage of EU countries among importers from Turkey stood at 49.5 in January 2016 compared to 42.7 in 2015.

Turkey's main partner in terms of for exports was Germany at $1.9 billion, followed by the United Kingdom ($650 million), Italy ($570 million) and Iraq ($469 million). In the same period, the top country for Turkish imports was China with $1.9 billion, followed by Russia ($1.3 billion), Germany ($1.2 billion) and Italy ($606 million).

According to the International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities, the ratio of manufacturing industries products among total exports was 93.2 percent in January. The ratio of high-technology products was 3.2 percent, while the ratio of medium-high-technology products was 32.7 percent.

The percentage of products from the manufacturing industries among total imports was 80.4 percent for the same period and the percentage of high-technology products was 16.7 in January 2016, while the ratio of medium-high-technology products was 43.4 percent.