Turkish trade gap falls 15.5% in May

Turkey’s trade deficit fell 15.5 per cent in May from a year earlier on the back of falling commodity prices and strong gold exports, data showed on Friday, indicating the central bank’s measures to narrow the trade gap had been effective. Turkey’s May trade deficit stood at $8.58 billion, down from $10.164 billion a year earlier, the Turkish Statistics Institute said, above a forecast of $8.2 billion in a Reuters poll. Exports rose 20.3 per cent to $13.168 billion and imports increased 3.1 per cent to $21.752 billion in May. “Precious stones and metals exports continued to strongly contribute to monthly exports ($1.7 billion) on the back of bulk gold exports to Iran for payment purposes.