Turkish media tend share very selected information.
Dış ticaret rakamları açıklandı
İhracat 2020 yılı ocak-eylül döneminde 111 milyar 948 milyon dolar oldu.www.milliyet.com.tr
When you look at with the previous year. Imports increased on a greater scale with Exports. Many experts points out that %85 imports are raw material and intermediate goods. So when we raise exports, imports also increase. We really need to reform our industry.
Yes raw material is fine (lot of time totally unavailable within a particular country).....but definitely intermediates should be looked at to address the situation.
This is what is known as "Value addition"....
say compare importing something 90% finished and adding 10% to it (value wise).
as compared to something 10% finished (essentially raw) and adding 90% value to it.
The latter correlates to more earning, more labour, more know-how, productivity and more jobs broadly in some combination depending on the exact nature of the good or service.
The latter will also genuinely carry more productive export value (and it will also naturally reduce the import pressure for intermediates as it can be done competitively within Turkey).
The other extreme is where zero value addition happens within the country and essentially handling logistics only etc...which classifies technically as "re-export"....and is not really anything productive or impactful to the country itself.
Benefit of value addition is not case only with trade, but larger economy too....you want as much value addition as possible. High income countries basically already achieved near their frontier on this.
Developing and mid income countries must prioritise here what is most optimal for them to expand into in any timeframe...what gives most returns for lowest investment (in short term) and what to high-invest into long term with rational approach (for the longer term).
With a great value addition (productivity basically) being developed and made available in a country, imports exceeding exports is actually not even a big issue (this depends on other things) as simply the imports are majority unlocking much more value within the economy (i.e raw materials being imported to produce good products and services within Turkey). Generally this happens in high income developed countries though rather than transition ones which are still coming "online" so to speak...and thus having export led growth (to more developed and/or larger markets than themselves) is generally optimal approach.