Turkish exports rose 2.4% to $24 billion in October, marking a new record for the month, Trade Minister Ömer Bolat said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a news conference in Istanbul to announce preliminary foreign trade data, Bolat said the country achieved its highest October exports and set a new record with exports reaching $270.2 billion over the last 12 months.
“Thus, the $270 billion threshold has been exceeded,” he said.
The minister explained that October export volume was the fourth-highest monthly figure on record, adding that three of the top four were achieved this year.
“We had an increase in eight of the 10 months. There was a net surge of $8.4 billion in our exports, or 3.9% in the first 10 months,” Bolat said.
Moreover, he pointed out that imports also rose 6.6% year-over-year, reaching $31.4 billion in October.
Like this, the trade deficit widened 24% to $7.4 billion for the month. The export-to-import ratio was at 76.5% last month, he also informed.
At the same time, Bolat also said that they estimated that “services exports will reach $103.5 billion in the January-October 2025 period, a $4 billion increase compared to the same period of the previous year.”
“Thus, we expect our services exports to increase by 5.4% to $121.2 billion on an annualized basis in October,” he added.
Furthermore, he recalled that the goods and services export target of $390 billion, which was set at the beginning of the year, was achieved earlier in September.”In October, we exceeded this target, reaching a total of $391.4 billion on an annualized basis,” he added.
Continuing his speech, he pointed to the rise in exports in different months earlier throughout the year, adding: “In the January-October period of 2025, exports were recorded as $224.6 billion, marking an increase of 3.9% compared to the same period a year ago.”
“We lifted our goods exports in 22 of the last 30 months. Furthermore, I would like to say with great pleasure that, starting this October, we broke monthly goods export records in 17 of the last 30 months,” he also said.
In addition, analyzing import data, he attributed the rise to net gold imports.
“The impact of net gold imports on this deficit stands out with $2.7 billion,” the minister said.
“In the January-October period, the foreign trade gap increased by 12.9% compared to the same period of the previous year, reaching $74.4 billion,” he added.
“Like this, the goods trade deficit surged by $8.5 billion in the first 10 months. Thus, the annualized foreign trade deficit increased by $12.8 billion compared to the same month last year, reaching $90.7 billion,” he concluded.
The written data shared by the Trade Ministry revealed that Germany stood out when considering exports last month, with $2 billion. Following Germany were the U.S. and the U.K., each obtaining goods worth some $1.4 billion from Türkiye.
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