Turkey's budget post $953M surplus in January

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's central government budget balance posted a surplus of nearly 5.1 billion Turkish liras ($953 million) in January, the Treasury and Finance Ministry announced on Friday.

According to a monthly report, Turkey's budget revenues jumped by 66.6 percent year-on-year to hit 97 billion Turkish liras ($18.1 billion) in the first month of 2019.

The budget expenditures stood at nearly 92 billion Turkish liras ($17.2 billion) last month, marking a 62.5 percent annual rise.

Excluding the interest payments, the budget balance saw a surplus of 12.4 billion Turkish liras (around $2.3 billion) in January, while the interest expenditures were around 7.3 billion Turkish liras ($1.36 billion).

The government's tax incomes reached 55.7 billion Turkish liras ($10.4 billion) last month, indicating a rise of a 7.1 percent on a yearly basis.

The average U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was around 5.35 in January.

Last year, Turkey's central government budget balance showed a deficit of 72.6 billion Turkish liras ($14.8 billion), meeting a year-end target under the country's new economic program.

The government achieved the target of a 1.9 percent budget-deficit-to-gross-domestic-product ratio in 2018 under the new economic program announced in September last year.

According to the same program, the budget deficit/GDP ratio target is 1.8 percent this year, 1.9 percent next year, and 1.7 percent in 2021.