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Turkey's trade gap soars while new iPad sells out in hours

30 April 2011 [10:51] - TODAY.AZ
Turkey’s foreign trade deficit continues to rise at an alarming rate, official data released Friday showed. As the data revealed an annual surge in the deficit of 96.8 percent, the new iPad 2 was put on display at major technology retailers in big cities, selling out within a few hours.

The Turkish Statistics Institute said exports in the first quarter rose 21 percent to $31.5 billion, but imports surged 45.6 percent to $56 billion. According to these figures, Turkey’s foreign trade deficit has increased by 96.8 percent, nearing $24.6 billion.

In March, exports rose 19.6 percent to $11.84 billion. However, imports soared 44.1 percent to $21.65 billion, nearly double the export figure.

In March 2010, the foreign trade deficit stood at $5.13 billion. In March this year, the figure soared to $9.81 billion. Monthly export-import coverage ratio was 54.7 percent, the lowest level since August 2005.

The worrying data, which is the main contributor to the current account deficit, came as a new and expensive imported gadget was put on the shelves at Turkish technology retailers. Bilkom, the distributor of Apple products, said in a previous statement that the first batch of iPad 2s would probably only last one day. Indeed, iPad 2s put on sale at giant retailers such as Bimeks, Darty and Teknosa were sold out in a matter of hours.

The revolutionary product sells for between 1,080 Turkish Liras and 1,835 liras in Turkey, the former is a Wi-Fi model with a memory of 16 gigabytes and the latter the Wi-Fi 3G model with a memory of 64 gigabytes.

Consumption goods imports, which include the iPads, recorded a year-on-year rise of 44 percent in March.

Worrying deterioration

In a note to investors on Friday, Özgür Altuğ, chief economist at BGC Partners in Istanbul, said the monthly foreign trade deficit reached an all-time high.

"The 12-month cumulative foreign trade deficit reached $83.7 billion in March from $78.9 billion in February, breaking a new record," said Altuğ. "Deterioration in external balances continued at full speed."

"The impact of rising global energy prices will be felt more pronounced starting from April, worsening the foreign trade deficit," he said. "It appears Turkey’s foreign trade deficit will not slow down in the short-term and this means the current account deficit will continue to widen."

Altuğ predicted the monthly current account deficit would hit $8.5 billion in March, the highest in Turkish history. He said the current account deficit in 2011 would reach $75 billion, or 9.3 percent of estimated gross domestic product.

Banu Kıvcı Tokalı of Destek Securities also raised her forecast of year-end current account deficit to 7.8 percent of GDP.

"As of the end of the first quarter, we see there’s been no success in putting the current account deficit under control," said Tokalı in a note to investors. "If a slow down is observed starting from the current quarter there will be increased worries related to monetary policy."

According to the data, the share of European Union in Turkish exports rose to 48.3 percent in March, compared to 45.9 percent in March 2010. Germany topped the list of top importers from Turkey, as foreign sales to Europe’s most robust economy rose 35.5 percent to $1.24 billion. Following Germany were Italy, Britain, Iraq and France.

Imports from Germany also soared 51.4 percent to over $2.1 billion. China came second with $1.93 billion, while Russia, a top energy exporter to Turkey, was third with $1.8 billion. The United States, where iPads are imported from, ranked the fourth, exporting $1.62 billion worth of goods and services to Turkey in March.


/Hurriyet Daily News/
URL: http://www.today.az/news/regions/85355.html

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