The Turkish Statistical Institute (Turkstat) revealed the foreign trade statistics for December 2016 on Tuesday. Accordingly, exports and imports increased by 9 and 2.3 percent, respectively, reaching $12.8 and $18.4 billion.

The foreign trade deficit in December was $5.59 billion with a 10.3 percent decrease.

Export-import coverage rate increased to 69.6 percent, increasing from 65.3 percent in December 2015.

Seasonally and calendar adjusted exports decreased by 0.5 percent while imports increased by 6.1 percent compared with the previous month. Calendar adjusted exports and imports increased by 9.1 percent and 5.4 percent compared to the same month last year.

Exports to the EU-28 increased by 4.8 percent from $5.41 billion to $5.67 billion dollars. The share of the EU countries in total exports was 44.3 percent in December 2016 while it was 46.1 percent in December 2015.

In December 2016, the main partner country for exports was Germany with $1.19 billion, followed by Iraq with $795 million, the U.K. with $768 million and the United Arab Emirates with $759 million.

The top country for Turkey’s imports was China with $1.86 billion, followed by Germany with $1.81 billion, Russia with $1.35 billion and Italy with $902 million.

The ratio of manufacturing industries products in total exports was 92.1 percent in December, while high-technology products only made up four percent and medium-high-technology products made up 35.7 percent of all manufacturing exports.

Manufacturing industries’ products made up 82.9 percent of all imports in December, with high-technology products making up 16.7 percent and medium-high-technology products making up 42.5 percent of all manufacturing exports