ANKARA
Turkey's exports increased 6.8 percent in April 2012 over the same period a year earlier to $12.7 billion from $11.8 billion, the country's statistics authority, TurkStat, said Thursday.
TurkStat said imports were down 8 percent in the mentioned period to $19.3 billion as trade deficit dropped 27.3 percent from $9.1 billion to $6.6 billion.
Export-import ratio increased 65.8 percent from 56.7 percent, TurkStat said.
Calendar adjusted exports increased 10.4 percent and imports decreased 4.2 percent compared to April 2011. Seasonally and calendar adjusted exports increased 6.4 percent, and imports decreased 0.8 percent compared to the previous month.
In the first four months of 2012, Turkey's exports increased 10.9 percent compared to the same period a year earlier to 48 billion 17 million USD. During the same period, imports went down to 74 billion 968 million USD with 2.7 percent decrease.
EU's 48.9 percent share in the Turkish export in April last year decreased to 37.6 percent in this April.
Export to the EU in April shrank 17.8 percent over the same period a year earlier with 4 billion 770 million USD.
Turkey's exports to Iran went up 438.2 percent with one billion 471 million USD in April compared to last year, being the top country of Turkey's exports. Gold exports to Iran constituted one billion 208 million USD of overall foreign sales.
