Turkey's trade deficit widened 75 percent year-on-year in December to $8.68 billion, the Turkish Statistics Institute said on Friday, exceeding a forecast $8.15 billion deficit in a Reuters poll.
Exports rose 18.1 percent to $11.87 billion and imports surged 36.8 percent to $20.55 billion, the data showed.
The full-year deficit rose 85 percent to $71.56 billion compared with a forecast of $70.9 billion.Timothy Ash, an economist at Royal Bank of Scotland in London, noted export growth running at half that of imports and said the data reaffirmed concerns about the economy overheating.
Note EU-Digest: rising food prices should also be a worry to the present Turkish Government. As 2011 begins, food experts fear that, within months, prices for key staples will climb above the 2008 threshold and stay there, causing extreme hardship for poor people around the world. “We are at a very high level,” said a worried Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist at the FAO. “These levels in the previous episode led to problems and riots across the world.” Food inflation is now running at 15% in Turkey and many other countries around the world. The fire is smoldering not only in the Middle East. Other fires could break out soon if corrective measures are not taken.
Based on the above it must not be excluded that Turkey could also experience popular unrest in the not too distant future.
For more: Balkans.com Business News : Turkey: December trade deficit widens 75 pct- more than forecast
No comments:
Post a Comment