Turkey's Foreign Trade Deficit Narrows 25 Percent İn 2015 Amid Oil Plunge

Turkey's foreign trade deficit narrowed by 25 percent year-on-year in the first 11 months of 2015 thanks to the decline in imports amid the drop in the oil price, according to data revealed by the TurkStat on Dec. 31.

The deficit narrowed to 57 billion dollars in the January-November period compared to the same period of 2014.

Turkey's exports in the first 11 months of this year fell by 8.4 percent to 132 billion dollars from 144.3 billion dollars in the same period of last year, while imports saw a 14.1 percent decline in the same period to 189 billion dollars from 220.4 billion dollars, according to provisional TurkStat data.

Exports were 11.7 billion dollars in November, with a 10.2 percent decline from November 2014, and imports were 15.9 billion dollars, a 25.3 percent decline year-on-year, according to the data.

The oil price drop and the continuing declining trend in commodity prices have played a big role in decreasing Turkey's foreign trade deficit over this year, according to analysts. Oil prices have plunged by 35 percent year-on-year in 2015.

Turkey's energy imports declined by 31 percent in the first 11 months of the year to 34.84 billion dollars compared to the same period of 2014. Experts expect this trend to continue in the first half of next year.

Germany was again the top destination country for Turkey's exports, worth around 12.3 billion dollars in the first 11 months of the year, although this figure marked a drop of 12.2 percent compared to the same period of 2014.

Germany was followed by Britain with 9.8 billion dollars and Iraq with around 8 billion dollars. Turkey achieved an increase in its exports to Britain and the United States, but faced drops in eight of its remaining top 10 export destination markets, according to TurkStat data.