exports to Europe slow down 2012-09-04

Turkey: exports to Europe slow down as trade gap narrows 

Turkey's trade gap narrowed 20% in the first seven months of the year from last year, falling to 50.7 billion USD, daily Hurriyet reports.

Nevertheless, a sharp fall in exports to Europe, its largest market, is increasingly encouraging the country to diversify its foreign trade, figures released Friday by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) showed. Turkey's chronic gap fell to 7.9 billion USD in July, some 14.3% down from the same month a year previously.

Exports to European Union countries constituted some 47.7% of total foreign sales last year, but this share has fallen to 34.3%, raising hopes that the foreign sales portfolio was diversifying. Along with the diversification in markets, the trade gap narrowing comes out of the fall in sales to EU members to 4.42 billion USD.