Turkey’s trade deficit dropped by an annual 33 percent in April as exports more than doubled from a year ago. The base year effect is taking its toll on the figures as last year’s exports in April were weak due to pandemic.
The trade gap narrowed to $3.06 billion last month. Exports increased by an annual 109 percent to $18.8 billion. Imports grew by 61.1 percent to $21.8 billion.
In April 2021, while seasonally and calendar adjusted exports increased by 3.5 prcent, imports decreased 3.7 percent respectively compared with previous month.
Hence the data can be interepreted as the continuation of strong recovery in Turkey’s exports thanks to the EU economy while the slowdown in imports is taking shape only gradually.
The trade deficit in the first four months of the year declined by an annual 19.7 percent to $14.1 billion, the institute said. Exports increased by 33.1 percent to $68.7 billion, while imports rose by 19.7 percent to $82.9 billion.
An increase in demand for imports last year widened the current account deficit to 5.1 percent of GDP, pushing the lira to record lows against the dollar and euro. Turkey must fund the deficit through inflows of foreign currency, the central bank’s foreign exchange reserves, or by exchanging liras for dollars.
The 12-month rolling current account deficit stood at $36.2 billion in March, or 5 percent of reported GDP.