Istanbul has become the star of Turkey's foreign trade with exports of 18.6 billion USD and imports of 27.4 billion USD in the first three months of 2008.

- 20 / 05 / 2008 11:27

Istanbul has become the star of Turkey's foreign trade with exports of 18.6 billion USD and imports of 27.4 billion USD in the first three months of 2008.

According to the Undersecretary for Foreign Trade data, Istanbul accounts for 56 percent of Turkey's total amount of foreign trade. Istanbul's total foreign trade volume was 46 billion USD in the January-March period of 2008.

Exports from Istanbul amounted to 18.6 billion USD in the same period with 16.6 thousand exporter firms.

In exports, Istanbul was followed by Bursa with 3.1 billion USD, Kocaeli with 2.1 billion USD, Izmir with 1.8 billion USD and Ankara with 1.3 billion USD.

Istanbul also topped the list of provinces having the highest amount of imports with 27.4 billion USD by 22.2 thousand importer firms.

It was followed by Kocaeli with 5.9 billion USD, Ankara with 5.8 billion USD, Bursa with 2.5 billion USD and Izmir with 1.9 billion USD.