Turkey's short-term external debt stock falls in Dec.

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's short-term external debt stock saw an annual down of 2.9 percent in December, an official data revealed Thursday.

Maturing within one year or less, Turkey's external debt stock totaled $116.2 billion, the Central Bank announced.

"As of the end of December, the currency breakdown of short-term external debt stock composed of 50 percent U.S. dollars, 29.7 percent euro, 14.9 percent Turkish lira and 5.4 percent other currencies," the bank said.

According to the official figures, the banking sector's short-term external debt stock went down 15.3 percent to $56.9 billion and other sectors saw a climb of 5.2 percent to $53.4 billion for it.

The rest of the short-term external debt stock -- around $5.9 billion -- belonged to the Central Bank of Turkey.

"The short-term debt of public sector, which consists of public banks, increased by 1.7 percent to $22.5 billion.

"... And the short-term debt of private sector decreased by 8.4 percent to $87.8 billion compared to the end of 2017," the bank said.

It also noted that short-term foreign exchange (FX) loans of the banks received from abroad dropped 37.3 percent to $11 billion.

"FX deposits of non-residents (except banking sector) within resident banks fell 3.8 percent over the same period, recording $18.8 billion," the data showed.

Official figures also revealed that FX deposits of non-resident banks amounted to $13 billion with a 23.2-percent decline, while non-residents’ Turkish lira deposits surged 7 percent to $14 billion.