Turkey's technology-intensive product exports increased by 20.7% in the first quarter of the year, reaching $56.8 billion.

The rise comes amid the "National Technology Move" carried out under the leadership of the Ministry of Industry and Technology, which now is bearing its fruits.

According to the data of the Trade Ministry and the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), exports of high, medium high, medium low and low technology products totaled $212.8 billion last year, up 33.1% from the previous year.

Of these, nearly $6.5 billion consisted of high-tech products, and $71 billion consisted of medium-high technology products.

Last year, nearly $206 billion of technology-intensive products in various classes were imported.

The increase in technology-intensive product exports throughout 2021 continued in the first quarter of this year as well.

In the January-March period, exports of technology-based manufacturing industry products increased by 20.7% compared to the same period of the previous year and reached $56.8 billion. This figure was recorded as approximately $47.1 billion in the same period of 2021.

In the first three months of the year, exports of high-tech products totaled $1.6 billion, exports of medium-high technology products were $18.7 billion, exports of medium-low technology products were $17.8 billion and exports of low-tech products amounted to $18.7 billion.

Meanwhile, there was a decline in the imports of "high-tech products" in the said three months.

Turkey, which imported $6.4 billion of high-tech products in the first three months of last year, made an import of $5.8 billion in the same period of this year, with a decrease of 9.8%.

Imports were $26.3 billion in medium-high technology products, $18.9 billion in medium-low technology products and $7.1 billion in low-tech products./DS