31 july 2024 — 17:00
Exports of goods from Turkey to Russia in the first half of 2024 fell by 28% year-on-year and amounted to $4.16 billion. Since the beginning of this year, Russian-Turkish trade has been hampered by Western sanctions affecting payments, RBC reports, citing data from the Turkish statistical agency TurkStat.
Thus, exports of goods from Turkey to Russia in the first half of 2024 fell by 28.3% compared to the same period in 2023 — to $4.16 billion (compared to $5.8 billion in the first half of last year).
Including in June 2024, Turkey sent $670 million worth of goods to Russia (a month earlier — $784 million), which is almost 30% less than in June last year ($956 million).
Since the beginning of 2024, the media has regularly reported problems with payments from Russia to Turkey for the supply of goods. The immediate reason was the decree of the President of the United States, signed in December 2023: he introduced a mechanism of American sanctions against banks of third countries for interaction with the Russian military-industrial complex. On June 12, 2024, the United States expanded the definition of Russia's "military-industrial complex" to include all companies (organizations) and all individuals who were or will be sanctioned after April 2021. As a result, the number of sub-sanctioned Russian entities, interaction with which may become the basis for American secondary sanctions, has actually increased significantly.
Nevertheless, Turkish exports to Russia are at historically high levels. Compared to the first half of the "pre-sanctions" year 2021, Turkey's exports to Russia increased by more than one and a half times.
Turkey's imports of goods from Russia also decreased in the first half of the year. The decrease was 10.3% compared to the same period last year, to $22.04 billion, TurkStat reported. At the same time, Turkey's imports from Russia even increased in June — by 1.2% compared to June of the previous year (to $2.95 billion).