Energy imports squeeze Turkish economy.. A jump in trade deficit

Turkey’s trade deficit rose 184.3 percent to $8.16 billion in June, according to official data.

The Turkish Trade Ministry has attributed the high trade deficit to the continued rise in energy import costs in recent years.

The Ukraine war has pushed up global commodity prices, affecting Ankara’s new economic plan, which aims to tackle high inflation with a current account surplus.

Turkish exports rose 18.5 percent to $23.40 billion in June, while imports rose 39.6 percent to $31.56 billion.

The trade deficit in the first half of the year was $51.37 billion, a year-on-year increase of 142.5 percent.

The Turkish lira fell 20% against the dollar in the January-June period of this year, the worst performance among emerging market currencies tracked by Bloomberg.

Data released by the Turkish Trade Ministry showed that the trade deficit widened to $51.4 billion in the first half of the year.

According to Bloomberg News Agency, the deficit, which increased by 143% from the same period last year, was driven by energy import costs in addition to the depreciation of the lira.

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On June 22, Turkey expressed its hope that the volume of its exports to Saudi Arabia will reach 10 billion dollars.

This came in news reports on the website of the state-run Sabah newspaper, Neil Olbak, head of the Turkish Foreign Economic Relations Council.

“The volume of exports to Saudi Arabia was previously 7.3 billion dollars,” he said: “With the restoration of momentum in relations, we can talk about 10 billion dollars worth of exports to Saudi Arabia.”

A Turkish trade official said last June that it plans to raise the value of its exports to $300 billion by 2023.

“Despite the challenges of the corona epidemic, the value of Turkish exports reached 225 billion dollars in 2021,” Güle pointed out.

He also explained that “Turkish exports registered a growth of 33% in 2021, compared to the growth of world trade of only 23%”.

Turkey’s total exports will reach $225.4 billion in 2021, a growth of 32.9 percent compared to 2020, according to data released by the Turkish Exporters Council.