Turkey’s budget balance deficit down to $4.65B in Jan-Aug

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkey's central government budget balance saw a deficit of 37.5 billion Turkish liras ($4.65 billion) in January-August period, the Treasury and Finance Ministry announced on Wednesday.

The figure was down from a 110.9 billion lira ($16.7 billion) deficit in the same period last year.

Turkey's budget revenues increased by 34.1% year-on-year to 872.63 billion liras ($108.4 billion) in the first eight months of this year.

The country's budget expenditures totaled 910.1 billion liras ($113.05 billion) from January to August, up 19.5% from a year ago.

The budget balance, excluding interest payments, posted a surplus of 90.66 billion liras ($11.25 billion) over the same period.

Tax revenues totaled 712.8 billion liras ($88.54 billion), while interest payments amounted to 128.16 billion liras ($15.9 billion) in the same period.

One US dollar traded for nearly 8.05 liras on average this January-August and 8.49 in August.

- Surplus in August

In August alone, the budget balance of the central government registered a surplus of 40.8 billion Turkish lira ($4.8 billion), up from 28.22 billion liras ($3.88 billion) in the same month of last year.

Budget revenues were 146.5 billion liras ($17.25 billion) last month, rising 35% on a yearly basis.

Turkey's budget expenditures increased 31.5% from August 2020 to 105.7 billion liras ($12.44 billion) last month.

Excluding interest payments, the central government budget balance also registered a 54.49 billion liras ($6.49 billion) surplus in August 2021.