The effects of COVID-19 on Turkey's foreign trade

The Covid-19 virus, which emerged in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019, became an epidemic and soon affected the whole world. The Covid-19 epidemic, along with its negative effects on human life, has also caused serious economic and social problems. The covid-19 epidemic, which brought many activities in the world to a standstill, has dragged the global economy into an unprecedented crisis. The cessation of production other than basic food needs in some countries and the fact that it comes to a standstill in others negatively affects the global gross product. The decrease in national and international demand affected important balances such as decrease in trade, increase in unemployment rate and decrease in household income. Loss of income with unemployment and the risk of not meeting the needs of individuals who have lost their income bring social problems. The covid-19 epidemic, which negatively affected all countries, also caused contractions in our country's economy. Various restrictions and measures have been taken due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Due to the slowdown in economic activities during the Covid-19 crisis, our country faced industry, trade and liquidity problems. The closure of border gates, the suspension of international flights, and the export bans imposed by countries on some product groups have affected the global supply chain. In addition, the rise of protectionist tendencies in foreign trade caused a contraction in foreign trade data, which is one of the important indicators in terms of economic growth. This situation shows that the effect of the corona virus epidemic is heavily experienced in our country's foreign trade. For this reason, the measures taken to eliminate the effects of the destruction in foreign trade as a result of the crisis are very important. In the study, primarily the effects of the corona virus epidemic on the global economy were analyzed on a sectoral basis, and macro and micro economic results were given. The main purpose of this study is to state how the crisis caused by the covid-19 epidemic affected Turkey's foreign trade and the reflections of these effects on the general economy. According to the results of the study, it was observed that the contractionary effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Turkey's foreign trade started in the first months of 2020, and the contraction peaked especially in March and April. In this period after the world faced the unprecedented prevalence of covid-19 epidemic; the human burden has increased, thousands of people have become unemployed, trade has stalled, and social and economic problems have become more evident. However, despite the ongoing uncertainties in the epidemic, the way out of this eco-health crisis has become more visible as a result of the discovery of a vaccine and the rapid progress in vaccination studies. After the turbulent 2020, in 2021 the global economy finally started to emerge from the bad phases of the Covid-19 epidemic. With the vaccination, there have been improvements in trade, along with some stretching in the restrictions and measures taken at the international level. The rapid policy responses carried out worldwide to the economic and health crisis that emerged after the epidemic prevented the worse consequences that could be. In addition, it is predicted that there will be a stronger recovery in the global growth forecasts of international organizations for 2021 compared to the first periods of the covid-19 epidemic.