Turkish exports hit $18.8 bln in April: Minister

Managing to outpace the pre-pandemic levels, Turkish exports hit $18.8 billion this April, the country's trade minister announced on May 3, citing preliminary data.

"We achieved the highest ever April figure and also the second-highest monthly exports of all times," Mehmet Muş said in a news conference in the capital Ankara.

Turkey's exports more than doubled - up 109 percent - from the same month last year when the figure was nearly $9 billion, Muş noted.

The figure was up 22.3 percent from April 2019, he said, when the pandemic's impact started to be felt in earnest.

Stressing that Turkish imports also jumped 64.1 percent on an annual basis to $21.9 billion last month, Muş said the foreign trade gap narrowed 32 percent to $3.1 billion during the same period.

The exports/imports coverage ratio climbed to 85.7 percent this April, up from 66.2 percent last April, he underlined.

January-April figure

In the first four months of this year, Turkey's exports surged 33.1 percent year-on-year to $68.8 billion while imports rose 19.8 percent to $82.9 billion, the minister said.

Turkey's foreign trade deficit shrank 19.5 percent to $14.2 billion in January-April, Muş noted, adding: "The export-import coverage ratio increased by 8.3 points to 82.9 percent in the January-April period."

COVID-19,