According to the provisional foreign trade statistics compiled by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) and the Turkish Undersecretariat of Customs, in March this year Turkey's foreign trade deficit decreased by 20.3 percent to $4.94 billion compared to March 2015. In the first three months of this year, Turkey's foreign trade deficit decreased by 21.1 percent year on year to $12.04 billion.
In March, Turkey's iron and steel exports ranked seventh among the country's products with the highest export value, totaling $491.61 million, decreasing by 23.7 percent year on year. Meanwhile, in the given month the value of exports of articles of iron or steel, which ranked ninth among the products with the highest export value, fell by 11.1 percent year on year, amounting to $445.52 million.
In the January-March period of this year, Turkey's iron and steel export value decreased by 27.4 percent to $1.37 billion, while the value of its exports of articles of iron or steel declined by 11.5 percent to $1.2 billion, both year on year.