Turkey's private sector foreign debts go up

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - The Turkish private sector’s short-term foreign debt increased by $902 million by the end of February to $15.2 billion, the Central Bank announced Friday.

The increase is between end of Dec 2016 till end of Feb 2017.

The short-term debt refers to debt that must be paid in the next 12 months.

The sector's long-term foreign debt also increased by $241 million to $202.7 billion during the same period, the bank said in a statement.

"As for the sectoral breakdown by the end of February, of the total long-term loans in the amount of $202.7 billion, 52 percent consists of liabilities of the financial institutions, whereas 48 percent consists of liabilities of the non-financial institutions," it said.

The Central Bank also revealed that liabilities of financial institutions and non-financial institutions accounted for 82.1 and 17.9 percent of the private sector’s short-term foreign debt, respectively.

"From the borrower’s side, regarding long-term loans, banks’ loan liabilities decreased by $193 million whereas bond liabilities amounted to $24.5 billion, increasing by $150 million in comparison to the end of 2016," the bank added.

Almost 70 percent of Turkey's private sector long-term debt was in U.S. dollars, with 33 percent in euros, 4.2 percent in Turkish liras and 1.9 percent in other currencies.

More than half of short-term debt was in dollars, 50.9 percent, followed by 31.2 percent euros, 17.7 percent Turkish liras and 0.2 percent in other currencies.