Turkey's exports up 3.9 pct in 2014 as Ankara to fight informal economy

Turkey's exports increased by 3.9 percent to 157,715 billion U.S. dollars in 2014 when comparing to that of the previous year, the state-run Anadolu News Agency reported on Friday.

According to the data, Turkey's imports decreased by 3.7 percent to 242,224 billion dollars last year, bringing the country's annual trade deficit down by 15.4 percent to 84,509 billion dollars. Trade deficit in 2013 was 99,859 billion dollars.

The European Union (EU) area topped Turkey's export destinations in 2014. Exports to the EU countries increased by 8.8 percent to 68,6 billion dollars on a year-on-year basis.

Meanwhile, last year saw Russia, China and Germany top three countries, from which Turkey imports goods and services.

Also on Friday, Ankara announced on a new action plan to fight against the informal economy, part of an economy that is not taxed or monitored by any form of government or included in any gross domestic product (GDP).

While introducing the plan in Ankara, Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said the government's target is to shrink the current ratio of the informal economy to GDP down to 21.5 percent in 2018.

According to the minister, the current ratio is 26.5 percent.

Simsek also said the ruling Justice and Development Party is also successful on fighting against informal employment.

"The ratio of unregistered employment was 52 percent in 2002. Today only 35-36 percent of total employment is informal, unregistered employment," he said, adding that "our goal is to decrease the ratio to under 30 percent by 2018." Enditem