ANKARA: Turkey’s trade deficit shrank 22 percent in June from a year earlier as imports dropped faster than exports.
The gap narrowed to $6.21 billion, compared with a median estimate of $6.3 billion in a Bloomberg survey of 11 economists. Imports fell 12.5 percent to $18.2 billion, while exports declined by 6.9 percent to $12 billion, the state statistics office in Ankara said in a statement Friday.
Exports in the first six months of the year were hit by geopolitical tensions in Russia and Iraq. Shipments to the latter, the second-largest destination for Turkish exports last year, fell 7 percent in June from a year earlier, while sales to Russia plunged 35.9 percent.
The report showed broad-based losses in imports. Turkey’s economic growth remains weak, in part due to falling private investments and slowing construction growth. The country’s Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek warned earlier this week the government may need to revise down its year-end expansion forecast from its current 4 percent level.
The lira weakened, trading 0.2 percent lower at 2.7889 per dollar at 10:52 a.m. in Istanbul. The lira has fallen 16 percent against the dollar this year, the third-biggest depreciation among major currencies.
