Türkiye's trade deficit widened at an annualized pace in April but maintained the downward trend, falling by around 30% in the first four months when compared to the same period last year, the official data revealed Thursday.
In the first four months of this year, Türkiye's overseas shipments grew by 2.7% from a year ago to $82.84 billion (TL 2.68 trillion), the data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) showed.
Its imports, on the other hand, dropped 9% to $113.08 billion in the same period.
Accordingly, the country's foreign trade gap amounted to $30.24 billion from January through April, plunging 30.5% from last year, the data showed.
In the same period, the exports to imports coverage ratio was 73.3%, while it was 64.9% in January-April 2023.
In April alone, the trade gap widened 12.9% year-over-year, as imports weighed over exports.
Turkish exports rose slightly by 0.1% from a year earlier to $19.3 billion in April, while imports increased 4% to $29 billion, the TurkStat data showed.
"Due to calendar effects, the annual foreign trade deficit increased temporarily in April. This situation will also be reflected in the current account deficit," Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, evaluating the data.
"We expect a decrease in the annual foreign trade deficit and current account deficit again in May," he added.
The preliminary foreign trade data for May is expected to be revealed by authorities on Monday.
"Although there may be limited fluctuations in the rest of the year due to temporary effects, we anticipate the ratio of current account deficit to gross domestic product (GDP) to be approximately 2.5% as of the second quarter," the minister said.
The TurkStat data also showed that excluding energy products and non-monetary gold, Türkiye posted a foreign trade gap of $5.1 billion last month.
The exports-to-imports coverage ratio dropped to 66.1% this April compared to 68.8% last year.
Türkiye's shipments to its main trading partner Germany totaled $1.5 billion in April, followed by the U.S. with $1.19 billion, the U.K. with $1.17 billion, Iraq with $876 million and Italy with $861 million.
China was the top source of Türkiye's imports in April with $3.75 billion, followed by Russia ($3.32 billion), Germany ($2.24 billion), Italy ($1.98 billion) and the U.S. ($1.33 billion).
On the other hand, the data showed that Türkiye exported the most to Germany in the four-month period as total shipments totaled $6.7 billion. It was followed by the United States, with exports amounting to nearly $5 billion and the United Kingdom with $4.7 billion.
The top three import sources of the Turkish market in January-April 2024 were listed as Russia, China and Germany, according to the TurkStat data.