Turkey: Government gross debt stock up in September

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA (AA) - The Turkish government’s gross debt stock totaled over 1.1 trillion Turkish liras (nearly $184 billion) at the end of September, the Treasury and Finance Ministry announced on Monday.

Last month, the gross debt stock -- the outstanding debt of public sector institutions, the Central Bank, private companies and households -- rose 33 percent year-on-year, compared to 842.9 billion Turkish liras (around $235.4 billion) of debt stock in Sept. 2017.

Some 587 billion Turkish liras (around $96.4 billion) or over 52 percent of the debt was denominated in local currency, while 534.2 billion liras (around $87.7 billion) of debt was in foreign currency.

On a monthly basis, the central government debt stock dropped by 2.8 percent, down from 1.15 trillion Turkish liras (nearly $179.1 billion) at the end of August.

The stock of Treasury receivables amounted to 19.8 billion Turkish liras (some $3.25 billion) as of Sept. 30.

"Local governments, with the stock of 12.2 billion Turkish liras ($2 billion), hold the largest share of Treasury receivables," the undersecretariat said, noting that the total amount of receivables collected by the Treasury was nearly 1.3 billion liras ($213 million) by the end of September.

One U.S. dollar was traded for 6.09 Turkish liras as of end of the last month and 6.42 liras as of end of August, while the average U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was 3.58 as of end of September 2017, according to the Turkish Central Bank.

As of Dec. 31, 2017, the Turkish government’s gross debt stock amounted to nearly 876.5 billion Turkish liras ($227.6 billion), while the figure was around 760 billion Turkish liras ($217.1 billion) at the end of the previous year.