The level of exports in April 2011 corresponded to 92 percent of that in July 2008. Thus, the impacts of the crisis are still felt.

Association of Turkish Exporters (TİM) has announced the export figures for April: exports had a record-high (for Aprils) volume at US$ 11.8 billion indicating a 25.5 percent year-on-year increase. This is pleasing. Today I want to take a closer look at the export performance; I will focus on the TURKSTAT data announcing figures with a one-month delay.

Turkey's exports are predominantly in dollar and euro terms. A small proportion of the export volume is in sterling. The volatility of the dollar-euro parity also causes volatility in the dollar value of exports in euro terms. Therefore, reporting the export volume in dollar terms might mask the actual change in exports. Evidently, the optimum method is to adjust the export data to the volatilities in exchange rate and export prices like to identify how many automobiles or how many tons of steel were exported. This is a hard task to do and the indices trying to do this are generally unsatisfactory. 

75 of the peak level
So, I will analysis the dollar exports and euro exports separately. Figure 1 shows the movements since the early 2007. To reflect a clearer outlook, I arranged the monthly data: the figure corresponding to each month is the average of the export volume in that month and in the preceding two months (for instance the figure for April corresponds to the average of March, February and January). In addition, I adjusted the figures so that the pre-crisis peak of the three-month averages corresponds to 100.
Euro denominated exports (average of the last three months) peaked in July 2008 with € 3754 (denoted with 100 in the figure). Export volume in December 2010, February and January 2011 are slightly above the pre-crisis peak. It appears that exports to the European Union have overcome the negative impacts of the crisis. On the other hand, exports in dollar are far below the pre-crisis levels: In September 2008, three-month average of exports in dollars was US$ 6152 (denoted with 100) whereas the level of exports in March 2011 corresponded to 75 percent of this peak level. 

92 percent of the 2008 volume
So, does TİM's export data for April 2011, which was at a record level considering Aprils, indicate that the impacts of the crisis on exports have evaporated entirely? TİM announces export figures only in dollar terms. Again on the basis of the three-month averages, we see that the level of exports in April 2011 corresponded to 92 percent of that in July 2008. Thus, the impacts of the crisis are still felt.

A reminder: May 2011 Issue of the journal "İktisat, İşletme ve Finans" was published. The issue has a separate section on the latest decisions of the Central Bank of Turkey (CBT). The first article on the objective of the CBT, written by Erdem Başçı, newly assigned Governor of the CBT, and Hakan Kara. The second and the third ones, one by me and one by Murat Üçer, take a critical account of the decisions. The articles can be downloaded for free in the journal website (http://www.iif.com.tr/index.php/iif). 



Figure 1: Exports in dollar and euro terms: January 2007-March 2011 (Index, three-month moving average). Source: TURKSTAT.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 03.05.2011