Minister of Treasury and Finance Mehmet Şimşek evaluated the foreign trade deficit announced today. Although the foreign trade deficit showed a limited increase in September, it decreased on an annual basis.
Şimşek told me that they foresee the ratio of annual current account deficit to national income to improve by 3.4 points in the third quarter compared to the same period of the previous year and fall below 1 percent.
Minister Şimşek’s statement is as follows;
“We have made significant progress towards our sustainable current balance target. In September, the annual foreign trade balance improved by 35 billion dollars compared to the same period of the previous year.
In the first three quarters, the number of visitors reached 48.3 million with an annual increase of 8.3 percent, and tourism revenue reached 46.9 billion dollars with an annual increase of 6.6 percent. Thus, we predict that the ratio of the annual current account deficit to national income will improve by 3.4 points in the third quarter compared to the same period of the previous year and fall below 1 percent.
“We will make the sustainable current account deficit permanent in line with our program targets with our policies that will accelerate green and digital transformation, focus on high value-added production and reduce foreign dependency on energy.”
