UPDATE - Turkey's exports on rise in 2018 first quarter

UPDATES WITH MORE DETAILS

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkish exports in the first quarter of 2018 reached $41.2 billion, up 8.9 percent, compared with the same period in 2017, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) on Monday.

Turkey's imports climbed 22.7 percent to nearly $62 billion, amounting to a foreign trade deficit of $20.7 billion over the same period, TurkStat data showed.

The data also showed the percentage of imports covered by exports from January to March at 66.5 percent.

The country's foreign trade volume reached $103 billion in the first three months of 2018, an annual rise of 17 percent, according to the data.

Exports to EU countries, the country's main trading partner, climbed 21.4 percent to $21.3 billion during the same period.

Some 51.8 percent of total Turkish exports were delivered to EU countries from January to March this year while it was 46.5 percent in the same quarter 2017.

TurkStat said Germany was Turkey's top export market, at $4.2 billion, or a 10.2 percent share of total exports, followed by the U.K with $2.63 billion, Italy with $2.56 billion and Iraq with $2 billion.

Turkey imported the most from China ($6.03 billion), Russia ($6 billion), Germany ($5.4 billion) and the U.S. ($3 billion) in the same period.

The manufacturing industry represented the lion's share of total exports, at 93.6 percent, followed by agriculture and forestry (3.6 percent), and mining and quarrying (2 percent).

The share of high technology products in manufacturing industry exports was 3.4 percent while the exports shares of medium-high and low technology products were 36.9 and 26.2 percent, respectively.

Last month, Turkey's exports rose 7.7 percent, year-on-year, to reach $15.6 billion, while imports climbed to $21.4 billion -- a 12.7 percent hike .

"In March 2018, foreign trade deficit was $5.86 billion with a 28.8 percent increase compared with March 2017," TurkStat said.