The Trade Ministry announced on Tuesday that Turkey's trade deficit had widened 43.9% YoY to $8.85 billion in April, with the main contributor being energy and gold imports, although these

slowed down in the same period. Despite this, overall exports declined 17.2% to $19.315 billion, while imports fell 4.5% to $28.162 billion. Energy imports decreased 35% YoY to $5 billion, while gold imports amounted to $1.5 billion.

As gold imports dropped, Turkey's gold reserves also declined, with the central bank selling some of its reserves to meet domestic demand. The central bank's gold reserves fell to $49.3 billion as of April 20 from $53.4 billion at the end of March. Photo by Vikiçizer, Wikimedia commons.