September foreign trade deficit at $ 7.5 billion

Turkey's trade deficit widened by 7.6 % and totaled $7.5 billion in September in line with the forecasts. According to data on provisional foreign trade figures provided by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat), exports rose by 1.3% to reach $13.12 billion and imports rose by 3.5% to climb to $ 20.6 billion in September. Turkey's energy import bill fell by 5.8% to $4.9 billion in September and declined by 7.3% to $41.4 billion in the first nine months of the year. On a calendar adjusted basis, exports recorded an increase by 1.3% and imports were down by 0.2% over the same month of the previous year whereas the seasonally and calendar adjusted exports rose by 2.7% and imports rose by 3% in September compared to the previous month. Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan noted the rise in the gold and precious metal imports contributed to the widening of current deficit.