Turkey's short-term external debt stock at nearly $120B

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - The Central Bank of Turkey (CBRT) announced Friday the country's short-term external debt stock amounted to $119.4 billion as of the end of the first quarter of 2019.

Compared to the end of 2018, Turkey's external debt stock -- maturing within one year or less -- surged 2.4% in March.

According to the official figures, the currency breakdown of the debt stock composed of 50.4% U.S. dollars, 29.6% euro, 14.7% Turkish lira and 5.3% other currencies.

"Specifically, in this period, banks’ short-term external debt stock recorded $57.1 billion and other sectors’ short-term external debt stock increased by 5.2% to $56.3 billion," the bank said.

The rest of the amount -- some $5.9 billion -- belonged to the CBRT.

"From the borrowers side, the short-term debt of public sector, which consists of public banks, increased by 8.7% to $24.4 billion.

"And the short-term debt of private sector increased by 0.9% to $89 billion compared to the end of 2018," the bank said.

The CBRT stated that short-term foreign exchange (FX) loans of the banks received from abroad fell 14.4% to $9.4 billion.

"FX deposits of non-residents (except banking sector) within residents banks increased by 2.1% in comparison to the end of 2018 recording $19.4 billion.

"And FX deposits of non-resident banks recorded $13.2 billion increasing by 1.4%," it said.

The bank added that non-residents’ Turkish lira deposits increased by 7.1% to $15 billion over the same period.