DM Monitoring
Ankara: Turkey’s foreign sales powered ahead as exporters achieved their second-best May ever, the nation’s Trade Minister Mehmet Muş announced Wednesday as demand in Europe, the country’s top market, gained pace.
Exports surged 65.5% year-on-year to reach $16.6 billion (TL 142.48 billion) last month, Muş told a news conference in the capital Ankara. Sales were up from nearly $10 billion a year ago, battered by the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic that had temporarily shut borders.
They increased despite the strictest lockdown yet that covered part of May. “We achieved the second-highest May figure ever,” Muş said.
Imports also jumped 54% on an annual basis to $20.6 billion in the month, the preliminary data by the Turkish Exporters’ Assembly (TIM) showed. Prior to May, exports had posted all-time monthly highs for five consecutive months and reached as high as $19 billion in March and $18.8 billion in April.
The pace in May widened the foreign trade deficit by 20.74% to $4.15 billion, the data showed.
The exports-to-imports coverage ratio came in at 80% for the month, up by 5.6 percentage points on a yearly basis, Muş said.
Sales were boosted by the recovery in European markets, where almost half of the country’s exports go.
The top market, Germany, received $1.4 billion worth of Turkish goods in May, the data showed, some 52.8% more compared to around $919 million a year ago.
The sales trend to the U.S. also maintained pace as exports surged 30.3% to total $1.15 billion, up from $882.1 million in the same month last year. Exports to the U.K., with which Turkey signed a post-Brexit free trade agreement in December, saw a 97.4% year-on-year increase last month. They reached as much as $1.1 billion, compared to $559.6 million a year ago.
Italy and Spain were also among the biggest receivers of Turkish goods in May as exports to European Union members skyrocketed by 109.9% and 170.3% to $834.1 million and $714.7 million, respectively.
The EU accounted for 41.2% of Turkish exports in May as sales were up 71.1% to $6.8 billion, up from $3.97 billion a year ago.
Combined with non-EU countries, the continent accounted for 55.8% of overall Turkish exports.
Highest annualized sales ever
The 12-month rolling exports reached more than $193.3 billion in May, the highest ever annualized figure, Muş said.
Along with further normalization, Turkey hopes to surpass its export target of $184 billion and reach over $200 billion by the end of the year, Muş stated.
The January-March foreign sales rose 38.3% year-on-year to $85.2 billion, the data showed, also marking the best five-month performance to date.
