Turkey’s foreign trade deficit sharply widened by 83% y/y to reach $8.84bn in July, driven by strong imports, data from national statistics office TUIK showed on August 29.

Imports shrank 1.5% y/y in June but soared 46.2% y/y in July to stand at $21.48bn. Intermediate goods imports rose 62% y/y to $15.9bn while consumer goods imports were up 11.2% y/y to $2.4bn. Turkey also purchased $3.05bn worth of capital goods from other countries in the month, a 14.2% increase on a year earlier.

Export growth accelerated from June’s 2.1% y/y to 28.3% y/y in July, coming in at $12.64bn, the fresh data also showed.

Exports to Russia jumped 108% y/y to $211mn in July meaning there was an increase of nearly 60% y/y to $1.34bn across the first seven months of the year.

Shipments to the EU, which absorbed 47% of Turkey’s total exports in July, rose by 18.2% y/y to $5.99bn in the month. Across January-July, exports to the European bloc increased by 5.4% y/y to $41.7bn.

Turkey’s vehicle exports gained by 43% y/y to $2.07bn while precious metals exports (mostly gold) were up 39% y/y to $1.3bn in July, according to the latest trade figures.

In the first seven months of the year, the country’s exports rose by 11% y/y to stand at $90bn while imports increased by 13.5% y/y to $130bn, leading to a foreign trade deficit of $39.75bn in January-July, a 20.7% increase compared to the same period of 2016.

In 2016, the country’s foreign trade deficit widened nearly 12% to stand at $56bn.

The government is forecasting a foreign trade shortfall of $60.7bn for this year with exports reaching $153bn and imports amounting to $214bn.