Turkey's exports increased by 2.3% year-on-year in February to reach $14.65 billion, the national statistical body announced Tuesday.
The country's imports also increased by 9.8% year-on-year to stand at $17.63 billion in February, Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) noted.
The foreign trade deficit was $2.98 billion in February, up 72% compared to the same month last year, it said. "In February 2020, exports-to-imports coverage ratio was 83.1% while it was 89.2% in February 2019," TurkStat added.
The institute said the manufacturing sector's share of exports was 95%, while agriculture, forestry and fishing's share was 3.2%, and mining and quarrying's share was 1.2%.
TurkStat added that the share of high-tech products was up by 0.1 percentage points to reach 3.4% of manufacturing industries exports and dropped by 1 percentage point to 12.9% of imports, year-on-year in February.
In February, intermediate goods took the lion's share, with 76.2% of overall exports, followed by capital goods at 12.4% and consumption goods at 11.1%.
Last month, Germany remained Turkey's largest export destination, with exports totaling $1.34 billion.
Iraq, the United Kingdom, Italy and the United States were other large export destinations with $906 million, $857 million, $766 million and $740 million, respectively.
Russia was the main source of Turkey's imports last month with $1.71 billion, followed by China with $1.7 billion, Germany with $1.6 billion, the U.S. with $1.13 billion, and Iraq with $750 million.
Foreign trade statistics are calculated using two different methods – the special and the general trade systems.
The general trade system is a wider concept, including customs warehouses, all types of free zones, free circulation areas and premises for inward processing.
According to the special trade system, exports were $13.93 billion in February 2020, and imports were $17.23 billion.
Meanwhile, the country's exports rose 4.1% to reach $19.4 billion in the first two months of 2020, while imports increased 14.3% to reach $36.8 billion on a yearly basis.
Turkey's exports totaled $167.92 billion and imports were $171.53 billion in 2019.