 showed on Friday.){kind=link}
Turkey’s foreign trade deficit surged 69.1 percent in 2020, increasing from $29.5 billion to $49.9 billion according to the general trade system, another indicator of the country’s mounting financial troubles since it was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) showed on Friday.
The exports-to-imports coverage ratio of the country, which was 86 percent in the January-December 2019 period, dropped to 77.2 percent in the same period of 2020, while exports decreased by 6.3 percent to $169.4 billion and imports increased by 4.3 percent to $219.3 billion.
The foreign trade deficit in December 2020 saw a 3 percent decrease compared to December 2019, declining from $4.66 billion to $4.53 billion, the institute said, while the exports-to-imports coverage ratio increased from 76.7 percent to 79.8 percent compared to the same period.
According to TurkStat, Turkey’s exports and imports increased by 16 percent to $17.85 billion and 11.6 percent to $22.38 billion, respectively, in December 2020.
The main partner country for exports was Germany in both December 2020 and in the January-December 2020 periods with $1.57 billion and $15.97 billion, respectively, according to the institute.
Germany was followed by the United Kingdom, the US, Iraq and Italy, with $1.11 billion, $1.08 billion, $976 million and $849 million, respectively, in December 2020, and with $11.23 billion, $10.18 billion, $9.13 billion and $8.07 billion, respectively, in the January-December period.
The top country providing Turkey’s imports was China in December 2020, with $2.48 billion, and in the January-December period, with $23.02 billion.
China was followed by Germany, Russia, Italy and the US, with $2.39 billion, $1.99 billion, $1.06 billion and $848 million, respectively, in December 2020, and with $21.71 billion, $17.85 billion, $9.19 billion and $11.51 billion, respectively, in the January-December period.