Turkey slashes foreign trade deficit by almost half in September

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) – Turkey’s foreign trade deficit fell 47.5% on an annual basis to $2.5 billion in September, according to official figures released on Wednesday.

The country’s exports and imports saw an annual rise of 30% and 11.9% to reach $20.78 billion and $23.3 billion, respectively, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) reported.

Excluding energy and gold trade, Turkey’s exports and imports were $19.96 billion and $19.6 billion, respectively.

“Foreign trade surplus, excluding energy products and non-monetary gold, was $1.38 billion in September 2021,” TurkStat said.

In the first nine months of 2021, Turkey’s exports grew 35.9% on a yearly basis to hit $160.95 billion, while imports were up 23.7% to $193.3 billion.

The trade balance during the January-September period saw a deficit of $32.3 billion, a 14.6% decrease from the corresponding period last year.​​​​​​​