Turkey’s official stats bureau TÜİK announced foreign trade data for November. In November, exports increased by 5.2% compared to the same month of the previous year, reaching 22.9 billion dollars, while imports decreased by 5.7%, dropping 28.9 billion dollars. Thus, the foreign trade deficit decreased by 32.6% in November compared to the same month of the previous year, falling to 5.9 billion dollars.
Foreign trade deficit was at the level of 6.5 billion dollars in October. When we look at the core data, we see that non-energy and gold exports increased by 1.6% monthly to 20.7 billion dollars, while non-energy and gold imports climbed to 21.7 billion dollars with a strong increase of 6.7%.
With the impact of the decrease in travel revenues, we expect the current account balance to have a deficit of 1.7 billion dollars in November. Although we expect the current account deficit to be around 45 billion dollars by the end of 2023, our current account deficit expectation for the end of 2024 is 33 billion dollars. It should be noted that the recent economic management’s emphasis on a policy approach that does not compromise on growth is among the factors that may limit the improvement in the current account deficit.
In the coming period, the developments in global energy prices as well as the extent of the slowdown that can be observed in domestic demand dynamics will be important for the course of the improvement in the current account deficit.
On the other hand, November foreign trade data indicate that industrial production may continue to fare weakly in the month in question. Imports of intermediate goods (excluding energy and gold) marked an annual decline of 18% in November. In addition, Istanbul Chamber of Industry (ISO) Turkey Manufacturing PMI data decreased from 48.4 to 47.2 in November, re-yesting the lowest level of this year and continuing to remain below the 50 threshold value for the fifth month in a row. Additionally, the Unadjusted Real Sector Confidence Index (RKGE) decreased from 103.3 to 100.2 in November, while the seasonally adjusted index decreased from 105.3 to 103.9.
By Tacirler Investment via Foreks News
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