Turkish exports hit by long Eid holiday

BURSA - Anatolia News Agency

A mission from the Turkish Exporters’ Assembly visits a production facility in Bursa, where they revealed the exports figures for October. AA photo

Turkey’s exports in October dropped 0.21 percent when compared to the same month last year to be recorded at $11.7 billion, according to figures gathered by the Turkish Exporters’ Assembly (TİM).

The data, which came only one day after the positive official exports figures for September, were rather related to a long holiday in October, TİM’s chairman Mehmet Büyükekşi said at a ceremony in the northwestern province of Bursa yesterday.

The four-day Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice holiday, in October was combined with Republic Day on Oct. 29.

In the first 10 months of 2012, Turkey’s exports were up 12.09 percent and reached $124.8 billion, according to TİM figures.

In the last 12 months, Turkey’s exports were up 11.93 percent and were recorded as $148.3 billion.
The TİM figures do not include large amounts of gold sales to Iran while official Turkish Statistics Institute’s (TÜİK) do.

Turkey’s foreign trade deficit decreased by 34.7 percent year-on-year in September 2012, TÜİK said on Oct. 31. Turkey’s gold exports reached $1.6 billion in September, it said.

“Declining exports to the European Union, a fall in the euro against the U.S. dollar, tension in the Middle East and a relatively limited number of business days in October appear to be the main factors behind the relatively weak export performance,” said Özgür Altuğ of BGC Partners in a note to investors. “We should also note that in the last seven months preliminary export data exhibits a very large deviation from the official export data due to soaring gold exports to Iran and UAE,” ha also confirmed.

Germany top market

Unlike the official figures, most of the Turkish exports in October were from the chemical goods and products sector, as this was the case a month earlier. The chemicals sector’s exports in October surmounted to $1.6 billion. Germany was the country that received the most Turkish exports in October with Iraq and Britain following.

Commenting on the figures, Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan said in a written statement that Turkey will reach its official 2012 exports target of $149.5 billion if the high performance continues in the remaining two months of the year.