According to data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) on Tuesday, Turkey’s exports decreased by 18.8% to $11.11 billion and its imports fell by 14.4% to 17.86 billion in May 2015 compared with the same month of the previous year.
Despite the foreign trade deficit decreasing by 6.1% in May from $7.19 billion to $6.75 billion when compared on annual basis, this number was still the highest figure of foreign trade deficit in 2015, NewsNow reported.
Compared with the previous month, exports decreased by 13.6% while imports remain the same. In comparison with May 2014, exports decreased by 16.4% while imports decreased by 11.4%.
Exports to the 28 countries of the European Union decreased by 21.3% on an annual basis.
Germany was the main destination for Turkey’s exports with $1.16 billion, followed by the UK with $689 million, Iraq with $658 million and Italy with $507 million.
China led Turkey’s import list with $1.93 billion, followed by Germany with $1.84 billion, Russia with $1.78 billion and the US with $1.61 billion.
In May 2015, the top country for Turkey’s imports was China ($1.935 billion) followed by Germany ($1.846 billion), Russia ($1.785 billion) and USA ($1.61 billion).
Manufacturing industries covered almost all exports in Turkey with 92.8% share, of which 3.5% was high technology and 31.5% was medium-high technology products.
Four of five import products were manufacturing industries’ goods with 80.4% share in May, of which 15.7% was high technology and 44.7% was medium-high technology products.