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The downward trend in both exports and imports
continued in 2016.
Despite the gradual recovery that European economies
experienced in 2016, violence and tensions in Turkey’s
immediate region adversely impacted on the country’s export
performance. Besides the geopolitical problems, the pressures
exerted by low oil prices on the national incomes oil-exporting
countries caused contractions in Turkey’s exports to Middle
Eastern and North African countries as well as to Russia and
Iraq. On a twelve-month basis, Turkish exports were down by
0.9% and were worth USD 143 billion in 2016.
The depressed price of oil was also the determining factor in
the contraction observed in Turkey’s import trade in 2016, a
year in which the volume of the country’s imports shrank by
4.2% and amounted to USD 199 billion in value. As a result
of such developments Turkey’s foreign trade deficit shrank by
11.7% last year and weighed in at USD 56 billion. The country’s
terms of trade (TOT) ratio, which was 69.4% in December 2015,
was up slightly to 71.8% twelve months later.
GDP Growth
(%)
2015 Q1
2015 Q2
2015 Q3
2015 Q4
2016 Q1
2016 Q2
2016 Q3
2016 Q4
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
‑1
‑2
Source: TurkStat
Foreign Trade
(USD million)
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Exports (FOB)
Imports (CIF)
The Association of Financial Institutions
Annual Report 2016
37