Turkey: Central gov’t budget runs $12B gap in Jan-Aug

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkish central government budget balance ran a deficit of 68.1 billion Turkish liras ($12 billion) of deficit in January-August period, Turkey’s Treasury and Finance Ministry reported Monday.

The country’s budget revenues surged 21.6% year-on-year to 590.7 billion liras ($105 billion) in the first eight months of this year.

Budget expenditures also saw an increase of 22.8% to 658.8 billion Turkish liras ($117 billion) during the same period.

Excluding interest payments, the budget balance posted a surplus of 1.2 billion Turkish liras ($213 million) from January to August.

The central government's tax revenues amounted to 432.7 billion liras ($76.8 billion) while interest payments amounted to some 69.3 billion liras ($12.3 billion) in the same period.

- Monthly budget realizations

In August, the government budget balance posted a surplus of 576 million Turkish liras ($102 million).

Last month, Turkey's budget revenues soared 34.1% on an annual basis, totaling at 94.3 billion Turkish liras ($16.7 billion), while budged expenditures went up 23.2% to 93.7 billion liras ($16.6 billion).

The average U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate in August was 5.65, while one dollar was trading for 5.63 liras on average in January-August period.