ANKARA, Jan 25 (A.A) - Foreign Trade Undersecretariat (DTM) estimated on Friday that total imports would reduce 25 percent to 41 billion U.S. dollars and total exports would reach 31 billion U.S. dollars with an increase of 14 percent at the end of 2001.
According to a report of DTM, foreign trade deficit is expected to decrease 60 percent from 26.7 billion U.S. dollars to 10 billion U.S. dollars in 2001 when compared to the previous year.
The reason for continuous decrease in imports at high rates in 2001 was the ''high rate devaluation and shrinkage in the economy''.
The report recalled that total exports had been 31 billion 64 million U.S. dollars in 2001 according to the statistics of the Exporters' Associations and noted that there were significant increases in exports of motor vehicles and by-industry, iron and other metals, electric and electronic devices and machines, chemical substances and textiles and raw material in 2001.
Motor vehicles and by-industry were the sectors which showed the greatest development and exports by these sectors increased 45.7 percent to 3 billion 912 million U.S. dollars in 2001, the report said.
According to the report, exports to the European Union (EU) countries increased by 13.5 percent especially as a result of increase in exports to Italy, exports to Middle Eastern countries increased by 36 percent, exports to East European countries increased by 26.6 percent, exports to the countries of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) rose by 13.7 percent while exports to the United States decreased by 0.6 percent.
Meanwhile, monthly imports which had been about 5 billion U.S. dollars through the end of 2000 started to be about 3-3.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2001 due to high rate of devaluation and economic shrinkage.
The report said that imports in January-October period in 2001 decreased by 24.5 percent when compared to the same period previous year.
In the first ten months of 2001, imports of investment goods reduced by 36.3 percent, imports of intermediary goods decreased by 17.4 percent and imports of consumer goods dropped by 42.4 percent.