Trade Minister Mehmet Muş announced the foreign trade figures for July 2022 with Mustafa Gültepe, President of the Turkish Exporters Assembly, in the program held at the Konya Chamber of Commerce.
 
Stating that Türkiye's success in exports in 2021 continued in the 7 months of 2022, Minister Muş said:
 
'Türkiye achieved the highest monthly export value in the 7th month, as it did in the first 6 months of 2022. Türkiye continued its track of records by making 7 out of 7. In the first 7 months of the year, Türkiye’s total exports amounted to 144.4 billion dollars. In July, our foreign trade volume soared by 28.7 percent compared to the previous year and reached 47.7 billion dollars. This value is the highest export figure for the month of July ever measured. Our imports in July amounted to 29.1 billion dollars.'
 
Minister Muş said that 'If the currency parity of the previous year had not changed, our exports in euro would have been 7 billion 96 million dollars higher and our imports would have been 5 billion 429 million dollars higher in the first seven months of 2022.' He added that due to the development in the parity, the foreign trade deficit was resulted 1.6 billion dollars higher, and eventually, the nominal effect of the parity was negative on the foreign trade deficit.
 
Minister Muş stated that this decrease in the parity stands out as a risk factor on the foreign trade balance.
 
Minister Muş emphasized that, despite all these external developments, with 12-month exports reaching 248.4 billion dollars, they are taking firm steps towards the export target of 250 billion dollars which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pointed out for the end of 2022. Minister Muş also stressed that:
 
'Dear exporters, with your devoted efforts, our exports continue to be the locomotive of our economy. At a time when the world's largest economies stumbled, more than half of the first quarter growth of 2022 was driven by net exports of goods and services. Accordingly, while global economic growth forecasts were lowered in the IMF's July report, our country's 2022 growth forecast was raised to 4 percent with an increase of 1.3 points.'
 
Minister Muş stated that, from the leading data, they observed continuation of the first quarter’s performance in the second quarter of the year as well.
 
Stating that the annual increase in industrial production, which started in July 2020, sustained with 9.1 percent in May 2022, Minister Muş continued:
 
“At this point, I would like to underline that this situation is strongly reflected in the employment data as we continue on the production side without slowing down. As of May 2022, the Turkish economy has managed to create 3 million 573 thousand additional jobs compared to the pre-epidemic period. The continuation of the increase in the employment and the highest labour force participation rate in the series show that the strong performance in our economy is reflected positively on the real sector. Following all the difficulties experienced with the epidemic, we anticipate high increases in our tourism revenues in the coming months, despite the increasing uncertainties with the Russia-Ukraine war.  As a matter of fact, the number of foreign visitors in June increased by 119 percent compared to the same month of the previous year, reaching 5.6 million, and touched its highest level after the epidemic”.