The Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) on Friday released the country’s provisional foreign trade statistics for May, which point to a year-on-year decrease of 76.5 percent in the foreign trade deficit.
According to the data, exports stood at $15.98 billion, representing a 12.1 percent increase, and imports were $17.82 billion, which corresponds to a 19.3 percent decrease compared to May 2018.
The export-to-import ratio rose to 89.7 percent last month, up from 64.6 percent in May 2018.
Compared with the previous month, seasonally and calendar adjusted exports increased by 8.1 percent, while imports decreased by 4.1 percent.
Turkey’s main export partner was Germany with $1.47 billion, followed by Italy, $857 million; the United Kingdom, $853 million; and the United States with $784 million.
In imports Russia ranked first at $1.89 billion, followed by China, 1.62 billion; Germany, 1.62 billion; and the United States at $1 billion.
A total of 94.8 percent of exports were manufactured goods, of which 3.4 percent comprised high tech items, while manufactured goods accounted for 75.2 percent of total imports, 15 percent of which was high tech.