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 10.3 percent to $4.49 billion compared to March 2016. In the first quarter of this year, Turkey's foreign trade deficit rose by 3.3 percent year on year to $12.53 billion.
In March, Turkey's iron and steel exports ranked fourth among the country's products with the highest export value, totaling $866.65 million, increasing by 78.7 percent year on year. Meanwhile, in the given month the value of exports of articles of iron or steel, which ranked eighth among the products with the highest export value, increased by 13.4 percent year on year, amounting to $500.09 million.
In the first quarter of this year, Turkey's iron and steel export value increased by 60.9 percent to $2.2 billion, while the value of its exports of articles of iron or steel rose by 7.2 percent to $1.3 billion, both year on year.