Foreign trade is the fundamental of international economical relations.With the increasing importance of foreign trade, the need for the quantitative information also increases.
The changes in quantities and prices of foreign trade are calculated by foreign trade indices. The indices are used for different purposes. For example; to directorate the production and external trade, to compare the national and international data, to monitor the changes in foreign trade by sectors, etc.
The State Institute of Statistics (SIS) has started to recalculate the foreign trade indices based on 1989 that were calculated until 1984. However, it is important to rebase the foreign trade indices periodically as it is the case in all other fields of economy. Rapid changes in the foreign trade have decreased the importance of selected items of the foreign trade indices based on 1989. For this reason, SIS has calculated the foreign trade indices based on 1994 to respond the needs of users.
The foreign trade indices based on 1994 constitute of 4 separate indices such as: import price/quantity, export price/quantity. The new indices have been calculated according to the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC Rev.3). Besides, taking into consideration the needs of the users, SIS will also calculate the foreign trade indices according to BEC, ISIC Rev.2, SITC and National Sector Classification, used for the calculation of the foreign trade indices based on 1989, according to the demands of the users. Furthermore, SIS will calculate the price indices by Turkish Liras as well as US Dollars and make it possible to compare domestic prices with foreign prices. SIS will continue to calculate the indices based on 1989 to December 1997 and the users can obtain from SIS in a week after publishing the indices based on 1994.
The index numbers up to June 1997 are given in the annex.
In the first six months of 1997 compared with the previous period, export and import quantity indices increased 14.6% and 20.5%, respectively. In the same period, export and import price indices decreased 3.8% and 5.2%, respectively.
