Turkey: Budget balance posts $21.3B deficit in Jan-July

Tax revenues total $63B, while interest payments amount to $12.2B in first 7 months of this year

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - The Turkish central government posted a 139.1-billion-Turkish lira ($21.3-billion) budget deficit in January-July, the Treasury and Finance Ministry revealed Monday.

Budget revenues of the country rose 9% year-on-year, reaching 541.9 billion Turkish liras ($82.8 billion) in the first seven months of this year.

Spurred by the coronavirus pandemic, the country’s budget expenditures hit 681.1 billion Turkish liras ($104 billion) from January to July, up 21% on an annual basis.

The budget balance, excluding interest payments, posted a deficit of 59.4 billion Turkish liras ($9.1 billion).

Tax revenues amounted to 412 billion Turkish liras ($63 billion), while interest payments were 79.7 billion Turkish liras ($12.2 billion) in the same period.

- Monthly figures

In July, the budget balance registered a deficit of 29.7 billion Turkish liras ($4.3 billion). Turkey’s budget revenues totaled 86.5 billion Turkish liras ($12.6 billion) last month, down 7% from July 2019.

Budget expenditures in the month totaled at 116.2 billion Turkish liras ($16.9 billion), up 39% compared to the same month last year.

Excluding interest payments, the central government budget balance saw a gap of 21.2 billion Turkish liras ($3.1 billion) last month.

The average US dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate in July was 6.87, while one dollar traded around 6.55 liras on average in January-July 2020.

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