The volume of turkish exports slid by 14.4 percent year-on-year and stood at $9.21 billion in January, according to Turkish Exporters Assembly (TİM) data.
Overseas sales to Turkey’s top five export partners suffered a decline.
In a statement on Monday TİM said Turkish exports totaled $140.64 billion in the past 12 months, 9.8 percent lower than a year ago.
One less weekday this January compared to the same month of 2015 resulted in $368 million of losses in exports, TİM head Mehmet Büyükekşi said. While the impact of adverse foreign exchange rates reduced exports by $371 million, euro-dollar parity, which hovered at around 1.167 in January 2014, dropped to 1.087 in the same month this year, he said. Turkish exporters pay for raw materials in dollars but are paid mostly in euros for their sales.
The automotive sector was responsible for $1.5 billion in exports, making the biggest contribution, while the defense and aviation industry recorded the highest increase at 19.4 percent.
Germany-bound sales dropped by 1.5 percent to hit $1.7 billion, those to the UK decreased by 15.9 percent to $631 million, to Italy by 2 percent to $558 million, to the US by 6.6 percent to $449 million and to Iraq by 47.9 percent to $441 million.
Büyükekşi said 2016 is expected to be a year of recovery after the government introduces its promised reform packages. Turkey earned $144 billion in overseas sales in 2015, a decline of 8.7 percent when compared to the export figures of the preceding year. The outbreak of military tension between Russia and Turkey, however, prompted analysts to fear that there is worse yet to come. Several Turkish exports were embargoed by Russia after Turkey downed one of its warplanes in November, and Russia fell from ninth position as one of the top 10 export partners of Turkey in January.
The chairman also said TİM is due to prepare an impact analysis of the post-sanctions period in İran on Turkish sales.
The lifting of prolonged global embargoes on the Iranian economy will boost Turkish exports by around 8 to 10 percent in 2016, he said.