According to the provisional foreign trade statistics compiled by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) and the Turkish Undersecretariat of Customs, in February this year Turkey's foreign trade deficit increased by 72 percent to $2.98 billion compared to February 2019. In the first two months of the current year, Turkey's foreign trade deficit rose by 86 percent year on year to $7.48 billion.
In February, Turkey's iron and steel exports ranked fifth among the country's products with the highest export value, totaling $717.23 million, falling by 18.2 percent year on year. Meanwhile, in the given month the value of exports of articles of iron or steel, which ranked tenth among the products with the highest export value, decreased by 2.7 percent year on year, amounting to $511.77 million.
In the first two months of the year, Turkey's iron and steel export value was down by 16.6 percent to $1.5 billion, while the value of its exports of articles of iron or steel increased by 4.7 percent to $1.07 billion, both year on year.