UPDATE - Turkey sees highest export figure for Nov. with $15.5B

UPDATES WITH TRADE MINISTER'S REMARKS

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's exports hit highest-ever November figure with $15.5 billion, according to the Trade Ministry's preliminary data released on Saturday.

Last month, the country's exports climbed 9.49 percent year-on-year while imports went down 21.47 percent to $16.1 billion.

The exports-to-imports coverage ratio rose to 96.3 percent in November, up from 69 percent in the same month in 2017.

On a yearly basis, Turkey's foreign trade deficit fell 90.5 percent to $604 million last month.

Preliminary figures showed that the country's 12-month rolling export volume also reached a new peak of $168.77 billion.

Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan said in a statement that the year 2018 continued to be the record year in exports.

"It is pleasing to see the fruits of our efforts enhance Turkey's competitive capacity in global trade," Pekcan said.

"We are confident that Turkey will reach the year-end export goal of $170 billion noted in the country's New Economic Program [announced this September]," she said.

"We aim at creating an economy with higher value-added and having our country rank among the developed economies," Pekcan said.

"In that vein we’ll continue to focus on branding, design and increase the share of high-tech products within our exports portfolio."

She also noted that the number of countries Turkey exported to and imported from with Turkish lira reached 174 and 110, respectively, as of November.

She stated that the volume of foreign trade conducted with Turkey's local currency in November totaled 10.1 billion lira ($2 billion), of which 47.5 percent in exports and the rest in imports.