Turkish exports register all-time monthly high

Turkey has registered the highest monthly exports ever as sales surged 24.6% in April to $23.4 billion, Turkish Trade Minister Mehmet Muş announced on Thursday.

Imports rose 35% on annual basis to $29.5 billion, with total trade volume surging over 30% to $52.8 billion, Muş told a meeting in the capital Ankara to announce preliminary trade figures, Sabah Daily reported.

The trade deficit jumped 98% year-over-year in April to $6.1 billion, the data showed, for a total of $32.5 billion in the first four months of 2022.

Energy imports soared 134.1% year-over-year to $7.7 billion, slightly down from $8.4 billion in March, taking a total to $32.7 billion from January through April – equal to an annual rise of 173.1%.

“As a matter of fact, excluding energy, export-import covering ratio increased to more than 100%,” Muş said. “We see that the global increases in commodity prices, especially oil and natural gas, continue to be effective in the increasing January-April imports.”

Energy imports accounted for a $20.7 billion out of the total $33.2 billion increase in imports from January through April of 2022, Muş said.