Türkiye's Export Records Meet 29.77% Inflation

Consumer prices in Türkiye rose 2.58% from September, putting annual inflation at 29.77% in October, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) reported. The annual rate stood at 32.87% in October 2025 and 29.73% in September. As prices continued to climb, the government announced export records and targets, saying those gains should eventually reach citizens’ purchasing power.

Record exports, persistent trade gap

Trade Minister Ömer Bolat presented preliminary foreign trade data at a conference. October exports climbed 8.1% from a year earlier to $25.9 billion, a record for the month. Bolat called the figure the third-highest monthly export volume in the republic’s 103-year history. Exports for January-October rose 5.5% to $236.8 billion, also a record for that period.

Annualized goods exports reached $285.6 billion, $15.6 billion higher than in October 2025 and above the government’s $282 billion target. By the end of October, Bolat said, annualized goods and services exports had reached $413 billion, topping the $410 billion target set at the start of the year. Those targets are government benchmarks; they don’t show what export growth has done to prices consumers face.

Imports increased 3.4% year over year to $32.58 billion. The trade deficit shrank 11.4% from October 2025, from $7.56 billion to $6.7 billion. The export-to-import coverage ratio gained 3.4 percentage points, reaching 79.4%. It stood at 100% excluding energy and 101.7% excluding energy and gold.

Over the first 10 months of 2026, exports totaled $236.84 billion and imports $314.5 billion, leaving a $77.67 billion trade gap. Intermediate goods made up 50.4% of exports, worth $13.04 billion, and 71.7% of imports, worth $23.36 billion. Manufacturing industry products accounted for 93.3% of exports, valued at $24.15 billion.

The numbers behind the price promises

Food and non-alcoholic beverages rose 27.73% year over year, adding 6.81 percentage points to annual inflation. Transportation prices increased 36.39%, contributing 6.1 percentage points. Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels climbed 40.24%, adding 4.71 percentage points. Education posted the highest annual increase, at 48.86%, while health rose 43.29%. Clothing and footwear recorded the lowest annual increase among expenditure categories, at 13.38%.

The 12-month moving average reached 31.23%, and prices rose 27.52% since December of the previous year. These measures sit alongside, not beneath, the government’s export figures: record shipments and a narrower monthly deficit haven’t brought stable consumer prices in the official data.

Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz said the government maintained a “resolute and holistic approach” to combating inflation. He said geopolitical developments had pushed global energy prices higher, continuing to pressure domestic prices through production and logistics. Yılmaz said annual food inflation held flat at 27.7%, while core goods inflation stood at 16.7%. He also said rent inflation was improving and annual services inflation continued to decline.

Yılmaz said authorities were coordinating monetary, fiscal and incomes policies, while pairing price-stability measures with structural steps. He named agricultural planning, energy diversification, increased housing supply and logistics upgrades as parts of a more resilient supply system. The stated goal is to bring inflation down to single digits and pass policy gains through to citizens’ purchasing power and living standards. In October, the published annual rate edged up from September.