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 63.7 percent to $2.14 billion compared to March 2018. In the first quarter of the year, Turkey's foreign trade deficit fell by 67.4 percent year on year to $6.77 billion.
In March, Turkey's iron and steel exports ranked third among the country's products with the highest export value, totaling $981.3 million, increasing by one 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, decreased by 3.7 percent year on year, amounting to $564 million.
In the first quarter of the year, Turkey's iron and steel export value increased by 4.5 percent to $2.8 billion, while the value of its exports of articles of iron or steel rose by 0.3 percent to $1.55 billion, both year on year.