Turkey’s foreign trade deficit widened 135.5% year-over-year in February, official data showed Thursday, driven by a surge in energy prices.
The gap jumped to $7.9 billion, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said, mainly due to swelling energy imports that constitute nearly one-third of the country’s overall purchases from abroad.
Energy import bill increased by 181.8% year-over-year to $7.76 billion in the month, the data showed.
Exports surged 25.4% year-over-year to just over $20 billion in February, while imports soared 44.5% to reach $27.9 billion.
The export-to-import coverage ratio rose to 82.7% last month, versus 71.7% a year ago, the data showed.
Turkey imported 2.34 million tons of crude oil last month, up from 1.56 million tons in February of last year.
Crude oil imports registered a 49.6% increase compared to the same month of 2021, the data showed.
Germany was Turkey’s main trading partner in the month, receiving $1.8 billion worth of Turkish exports.
It was followed by the U.S. with $1.3 billion, the U.K. with $1.1 billion and Italy with $1.09 billion, TurkStat said.
On the other side of the ledger, the top country for Turkey’s imports last month was Russia with $3.9 billion, followed by China with $3.2 billion, Germany with $1.9 billion and the U.S. with $1.1 billion.
In January-February, Turkey’s foreign trade deficit shot up by 183.1% on an annual basis to $18.2 billion.
The two-month exports stood at $37.6 billion, up by 21.4%, while imports totaled $55.7 billion, rising 49.2% year-over-year.
