Turkey’s monthly exports fell below the $10 billion mark for the first time since 2011 in January, while regional political crises dealt a major blow to Turkish exports to such traditional markets as Russia and the EU, government data showed at the end of February.
Turkish exports amounted to $9.6 billion in the first month of 2016, a 22 percent decline from a year ago, according to the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat). The data revealed that imports hit $13.4 billion in the same month, a 19.7 percent decline year-on-year.
In January, Turkish exports to Russia fell drastically by 65 percent year-on-year. The diplomatic crisis between Ankara and Moscow over a downed Russian jet by Turkey, and Turkey’s Syria policy take a toll on export/import trade with Russia.
The Russian crisis is feared to lose Turkey as much as $2.2 billion in exports in 2016, analysts have warned. Russia did not even make it to the list of top 20 buyers of Turkish goods in January.
