Turkey's short-term foreign debt stock reaches $123.6B

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's Central Bank on Tuesday reported that the country's short-term external debt stock totaled $123.6 billion as of end-January.

The external debt stock -- maturing within one year or less -- remained constant compared to end of last year, according to the bank.

The currency breakdown of the debt stock composed of 48.8% U.S. dollars, 30% euro, 13.8% Turkish lira and 7.4% other currencies.

Short-term external debt stock of lenders rose 1% to $56.8 billion while other sectors saw a 1% drop to $58.4 billion, the bank said.

The rest of the amount -- some $8.4 billion -- belonged to the bank.

"From the borrowers side, the short-term debt of public sector, which consists of public banks, increased by 7.7% to $23.4 billion and the short-term debt of private sector decreased by 1.8% to $91.7 billion compared to the end of 2019," it noted.

Short-term foreign exchange (FX) loans of the banks received from abroad went down 11.3% to $6.9 billion.

"FX deposits of non-residents (except banking sector) within residents’ banks decreased by 0.1% in comparison to the end of 2019 recording $21.1 billion."

FX deposits of non-resident lenders recorded $13.6 billion in January, down 0.7% from end-2019, it added.

The bank also said that non-residents’ Turkish lira deposits rose 11.5%, hitting $15.2 billion in the same period.