Turkey's electricity import bill in the January-September period of 2017 decreased by 61 percent compared to the same period of 2016, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute's (Turkstat) data Saturday.
The data shows that Turkey paid nearly $60.69 million for electricity imports in the first nine months of 2017, compared to $155.8 million in the same period of 2016.
The amount of electricity imported between January and September reached nearly 1.21 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), compared to 3.24 billion kWh during the same period of 2016.
Turkey bought electricity from five countries - Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Azerbaijan and the Czech republic, the data shows, out of which Bulgaria held the biggest share of electricity exports to Turkey.
Nearly 594.41 million kWh of electricity out of a total amount of 1.21 billion kWh in the first nine-month period of 2017 was bought from Bulgaria. Turkey paid $22.28 million to its neighbor for electricity imports during this period.
Georgia with 257.54 million kWh of imports for which Turkey paid nearly $9.62 million followed Bulgaria.
Azerbaijan, Greece and the Czech republic followed with 228.51, 128.29 and 1.72 million kWh of electricity imports, respectively. Turkey paid $14.76 million to Azerbaijan, $8.21 million to Greece and $57 thousand to the Czech republic for imports in the January-September period of the year.
Additionally, January saw the highest electricity imports out of the January-September period in 2017 when Turkey imported 406.46 million kWh of electricity and paid $25.88 million.
(Anadolu Agency)
