Foreign trade deficit fell by 6.1% y/y to $6.75bn in May, after a 31.5% y/y decline in April, data of the statistics office TUIK showed on June 30. The market had expected a foreign trade deficit of $6.8bn. Turkey’s foreign trade shortfall fell by 37% y/y in January and 9.4% y/y in February while the country’s foreign trade posted the only increase of 17.9% y/y this year in March.

Exports in May declined by 18.8% y/y to $11.1bn while the pace of decline in imports accelerated to 14.4% y/y from 11.1% y/y in the previous month. Imports amounted to $17.9bn in May with consumer goods and intermediate goods imports declining 7% y/y and 18.8% y/y, respectively, and capital goods imports rising by a slight 0.7% y/y.

On a seasonally and calendar adjusted basis, exports declined 13.6% m/m while imports remained unchanged in May.

Exports to the EU fell by 21.3% y/y to $4.72bn in May. Shipments of goods to the Middle East, which accounted for 23.1% in total export revenues, were down 19.9% y/y while exports to North America (4.7% share in total exports) declined by 14.7% y/y. Exports to Africa (10% share in total) fell by 7.6% y/y in the month.

Data from TUIK also showed that Germany was still the largest market for Turkish exporters in May, representing a 9.1% share in total exports but export to this country declined by 25.7% m/m while Turkey’s exports to the UK, the second largest market, dropped 15.4% y/y.

Turkey paid $3.36bn for energy imports in May, representing a 23.7% y/y decline while the energy import bill totaled $17.3bn in the first five months of 2015, pointing to a 24.3% decline from a year ago. Precious metals exports (mostly gold) rose by 29.8% y/y to $0.5bn in May.

In January-May, Turkey’s foreign trade deficit shrank 15.2% y/y to $27bn. Exports fell by 8.4% y/y to $61.56bn and imports declined by 10.6% y/y to $88.5bn in the first five months of the year. The government foresees a foreign trade deficit of $85bn for 2015. It expects exports and imports to be $173bn and $258bn this year. Turkey’s foreign trade deficit fell 15.3% last year to $84.6bn.