Turkey runs $3.7B budget deficit in first 10 months

By Bahattin Gonultas

ANKARA (AA) - The Turkish government ran a budget deficit of 104 million Turkish liras ($32 million) in October and 12.1 billion liras ($3.7 billion) in January-October, the state Finance Ministry announced Tuesday.

"Turkish government revenues last month stood at 43.4 billion Turkish liras ($13.2 billion), an 11 percent fall year-on-year, while budget expenditures were 43.5 billion Turkish liras ($13.3 billion), up 18.9 percent from a year earlier," it said in a statement.

According to the ministry, budget revenues reached 447.9 billion Turkish liras ($136.7 billion) in the first 10 months of the year, a 12.5 percent rise over the same period last year.

Tax revenues also rose nearly 9.5 percent during the period to 365.3 billion liras ($111.5 billion).

Budget expenditures in January-October rose to 460 billion Turkish liras ($140.4 billion), marking a 13.8 percent increase year-on-year.

The government's expenditures for health, pensions, and welfare rose nearly 38 percent in the first 10 months of the year to 89 billion liras ($27.1 billion) over the same period last year.

Personnel expenditures rose 19.1 percent, reaching almost 126 billion lira ($38.4 billion) in January-August 2016.

Interest expenditures stood at 44.6 billion liras ($13.6 billion) in that period, a fall of 5.9 percent.

The government is aiming for a budget deficit of 29.7 billion Turkish liras (nearly $10 billion) at the end of the year, according to the Finance Ministry.