We have stagnated in foreign trade in 20 years

■ Tolga UĞUR

END While Turkey’s foreign trade deficit has increased in 20 years, the ratio between exports and imports has stagnated. In 1923, when the Republic was founded, Turkey’s exports amounted to $50.7 million and imports amounted to $86.8 million. While the export-import coverage ratio was 58.5 percent, the foreign trade balance had a deficit of 36.1 million dollars.

WE HAVE HAD A DEFICIT SINCE 1947

The first foreign trade surplus during the period of the Republic occurred in 1930. With the impact of the 1929 crisis, imports decreased by 43.1 percent annually to 69.5 million dollars, while exports increased to 71.3 million dollars. The Turkish economy managed to have a constant trade surplus from 1930 to 1947, except for 1938. From 1947 to 2023, Turkey’s foreign trade balance has been in deficit without exception. After a deficit of more than 100 billion dollars was recorded for the first time in the foreign trade balance in 2011, in 2022 the foreign trade deficit once again reached 10-digit values ​​and broke a record with 106.9 billion of dollars. The highest value in the export-import coverage ratio during the Republic period was in 1946 with 180.5 percent, and the lowest value was in 1975 with 29.6 percent. The share of exports in the gross national product was 8.9 percent in 1923 and imports 15.2 percent.

The deficit increased by 590 percent.

From 2002, when the AKP came to power, until 2022, the share of exports increased by 6.1 points, reaching 26 percent, and imports increased by 9.3 points, reaching 37.8 percent. Over the past 20 years, the current account deficit increased by 7,633 percent and reached $48.4 billion by the end of 2022. In the same period, exports increased by 552.3 percent, while imports increased by 563 percent. .7 percent. During the period when the dollar exchange rate increased by 1,000 percent, the foreign trade deficit grew by 590.3 percent.