Monthly Archives: February 2021

Developments in Turkey’s External Merchandise Trade in 2020
In 2020, merchandise exports amounted to 169 billion 482 million US dollars with a decrease of 6.3% compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, merchandise imports increased by 4.3% and reached 219 billion 397 million US dollars. Imports excluding gold fell by 2.4% to 194 billion 213 million US dollars. Foreign trade volume in 2020 realized as 388 billion 879 million US dollars with a slight decline of 0.59% compared to the previous year. In 2020, the export/import coverage ratio was 77.2%. The export/import coverage ratio excluding gold realized as 85.8% (Figure 1).
Since March, the world economies have been dealing with severe economic recession due to the Covid-19 epidemic, which has caused significant contraction in the whole world economy. As a result, Turkish exports declined to 32.4 billion US dollars in the second quarter of 2020. Despite the negative effects of the pandemic, exports started t