Managing to outpace the pre-pandemic levels, Turkish exports hit $18.8 billion this April, the country’s trade minister announced on Monday, citing preliminary data.
“We achieved the highest ever April figure and also the second-highest monthly exports of all times,” Mehmet Muş said in a news conference in the capital Ankara.
Turkey’s exports more than doubled — up 109% — from the same month last year when the figure was nearly $9 billion, Muş noted.
The figure was up 22.3% from April 2019, he said, when the pandemic’s impact started to be felt in earnest.
Stressing that Turkish imports also jumped 64.1% on an annual basis to $21.9 billion last month, Muş said the foreign trade gap narrowed 32% to $3.1 billion during the same period.
The exports/imports coverage ratio climbed to 85.7% this April, up from 66.2% last April, he underlined.
JANUARY-APRIL FIGURE
In the first four months of this year, Turkey’s exports surged 33.1% year-on-year to $68.8 billion while imports rose 19.8% to $82.9 billion, the minister said.
Turkey’s foreign trade deficit shrank 19.5% to $14.2 billion in January-April, Mus noted, adding: “The export-import coverage ratio increased by 8.3 points to 82.9% in the January-April period.”