Turkey’s budget balance posts $9.8B deficit in Jan-July

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's central government budget balance posted a deficit of 78.3 billion Turkish liras ($9.8 billion) in January-July, the Treasury and Finance Ministry announced on Monday.

The figure improved from a 139 billion lira ($21.3 billion) deficit in the same period last year.

Turkey's budget revenues increased by 34% year-on-year to 726.1 billion liras ($91 billion) in the first seven months of this year.

The country's budget expenditures totaled 804.4 billion liras ($100.6 billion) from January to July, up 18.1% from a year ago.

The budget balance, excluding interest payments, posted a surplus of 36.2 billion liras ($4.5 billion) in January-July.

Tax revenues totaled 581.7 billion liras ($72.7 billion), while interest payments were 114.5 billion liras ($14.3 billion) in the same period.

One US dollar traded for nearly 8 liras on average this January-July and 8.60 in July.

- Monthly figure

In July, the budget balance of the central government registered a 45.8 billion Turkish lira (some $5.3 billion) deficit, down from 29.7 billion liras ($4.3 billion) in the same month of last year.

Budget revenues were 95.3 billion liras ($11.1 billion) last month, rising 10% on a yearly basis.

Turkey's budget expenditures increased 21.4% from July 2020 to 141.1 billion liras ($16.4 billion) last month.

Excluding interest payments, the central government budget balance registered a 22.2 billion liras ($2.6 billion) deficit in July 2021.