Turkey: Short-term foreign debt stock at $120.4B

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's short-term external debt stock amounted to $120.4 billion at the end of May, the country's Central Bank revealed Thursday.

Debt maturing within the next 12 months went up 3.3% in May since the end of last year, according to the statement.

More than half of the country's short-term external debt stock was in dollars -- 52.3% --, followed by 29.9% in euros, 12.9% in Turkish liras, and 4.9% in other currencies.

"Banks’ short-term external debt stock decreased by 2.2% to $55.8 billion and other sectors’ short-term external debt stock increased by 10.5% to $59.1 billion," the statement read.

From the borrowers' side, the short-term debt of public sector -- mainly of public banks -- reached to $23.3 billion, rising 3.5% since the end of 2018.

Private sector's short-term debt rose 4% to hit $91.7 billion during the same period.

The bank added that the short-term foreign exchange (FX) loans of the banks received from abroad totaled $10 billion, down 8.8% from 2018-end.

"FX deposits of non-residents -- except banking sector -- within residents banks increased by 3.4% in comparison to the end of 2018 recording $19.7 billion, and FX deposits of non-resident banks recorded $12.8 billion decreasing by 1.6%," it said.