Mehmet Muş, Minister of Trade of the Republic of Türkiye, announced the foreign trade figures for November at the meeting held at the Adana Chamber of Commerce.

Noting that last year’s exports kept accelerating in the 11 months of this year, reaching the highest monthly value in each month, Trade Minister Muş said, “Our exports in No- vember increased by 1.9 percent compared to November of the last year, totalling USD 21.9 billion. Our exports in the January-November period increased by 14 percent to USD 231 billion. Due to the sharp increases in energy and commodity prices, our imports totalled USD 30.7 billion in November. This month, our energy imports increased by 17.4 percent to USD 7.7 billion, making up one-fourth of our total imports. The aforementioned increase in commodity prices increases the imports of our country, which imports high amounts of energy especially for the manufacturing sector, as in all net commodity importing countries.

Motor Vehicle Imports Reached USD 1.9 Billion in November

Stating that certain sectoral developments also had an

impact on November imports, Trade Minister Muş added:

“The global automotive market has started to revive as a result of the alleviation of the problems related to the sup- ply of semiconductors experienced in various sectors, the automotive industry, in particular, last year. In this context, our motor land vehicle imports increased by 40 percent and reached USD 1.9 billion in November. Therefore, the significant increase in energy, gold, and automotive items has a share in our foreign trade deficit this month.”

Trade Minister Muş emphasized that as a ministry, they keep offering all kinds of support to exporters at a time when global uncertainty has increased so much.

“Our country has achieved an uninterrupted growth in the last 9 quarters”

Trade Minister Muş stated that there is a growing debt problem in the global economy. Noting that many financial institutions will witness weaker global growth and higher borrowing costs next year, Trade Minister Muş said, “In other words, fiscal tightening alone cannot reduce global inflation in the short term, but it also reduces growth and triggers the global debt problem.”

Underlining that Türkiye displayed a remarkable and suc- cessful performance in both foreign trade and economic growth during such developments in the global economy, Minister Muş continued his words as follows:

“Having reached its highest growth rate of the last 50 years in 2021, our country has managed to maintain its growth trend at a time when many countries were rapidly drifting into recession. Our growth in the second quarter was re- vised upwards as 7.7 percent, and in the third quarter of 2022, our economy grew by 3.9 percent and achieved an interrupted growth in the last 9 quarters.”