Turkey's trade deficit widened to USD 4.9bn in August from USD 3.4bn in July, exceeding the market consensus of a deficit of USD 3.8bn. Car exports fell to USD 700m from USD 1.2bn in July, which explains a significant portion of the bigger-than-expected deficit. Iron and steel exports declined to USD 518m from USD 712m, which also added to the deficit. We suppose that the former reflects the end of Germany's car scrappage subsidy, which is likely to affect German imports of small and medium-sized cars. If this is indeed the case, then Turkey's monthly trade deficit run rate could rise to around USD 5bn in the coming months from USD 3-4bn in recent months. While not tragic - ytd the deficit amounts to USD 23bn vs USD 53bn in the same period a year ago - it is nevertheless adverse news for Turkey. TRY responded slightly negatively by weakening to 1.4875 from 1.4820 vs USD, which indicates that the FX market is not overly concerned by this data.