Turkey’s trade falls ‘like many countries’

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

Turkey’s exports and imports showed a slight fall in March from the same month of 2012. REUTERS photo

Turkey’s exports and imports fell slightly in March along with the foreign trade deficit from the same month a year earlier, but Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan said yesterday that many countries’ foreign trade was regressing this year.

Exports decreased by 0.03 percent in March when compared to the same month of the previous year and imports showed a 0.06 percent decrease in the same period, according to figures revealed by the state-run statistics body, TÜİK, yesterday. The foreign trade deficit was reduced to $7.38 billion with a 1.1 percent fall as the exports coverage of imports increased from 63.9 percent to 64.1 percent in the same period.

However exports to the EU fell to $5.36 million with a 2.4 percent decrease in March from the same month of 2012. Çağlayan said that as Turkey exported to 229 countries in March, the negative economic situation in the European Union caused a decrease in exports there, adding that weak demand in the EU might recover by the end of this year.

Çağlayan also noted that exports to Africa, the U.S. and Asia had risen. “These developments showed us that work for market diversification, which provided a contribution of more than $42 billion in the last four years, was the right choice,” said Çağlayan. He noted that they aimed to raise exports to over $158 billion this year, with a 4 percent increase from last year.

As Germany became the main partner country for exports with $1.15 billion, in the same period China was the top country for imports with $2 billion.