Turkiye's foreign trade deficit narrows by 30.5% in H1

Turkiye's foreign trade deficit decreased by 30.5% in the first half of this year from $61.3 billion to $42.59 billion on a yearly basis, the Turkish Statistical Office (TurkStat) revealed on Wednesday.

The country's exports rose by 2.6% to $126.3 billion in the Jan-June period while imports dropped by 8.4% $168.87 billion, official figures showed.

The export-import coverage ratio was at 74.8% during the first half, up from 66.8% in the same period last year.

High-tech's share in overall exports was at 4.1% in the six-month period this year, up by 19.2% year-on-year.

In January-June, the main sources for Turkiye's imports were Russia, China and Germany while main export destinations of Turkish companies were Germany, the US and UK.

In June alone, Turkiye's exports dropped by 8.3% to $19.05 billion and imports went down by 4.4% to $24.9 billion; foreign trade deficit was at $5.87 billion.