Turkish government’s gross debt stock over $1.1B

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkish central government’s gross debt stock totaled some 1.13 trillion Turkish liras (nearly $211 billion) at the end of February, the Treasury and Finance Ministry announced on Wednesday.

Last month's figure was up 25.5 percent from the same period of last year.

The gross debt stock includes the outstanding debt of public sector institutions, the Central Bank, private companies, and households.

More than half of the debt stock is in local currency -- some 598.1 billion Turkish liras ($112 billion) -- while the rest is denominated in foreign currencies.

The stock of Treasury receivables stood at 18.5 billion Turkish liras ($3.5 billion) as of Feb. 28.

Local governments with a stock of 11.7 billion Turkish liras ($2.2 billion) held the largest share of Treasury receivables, it reported.

The total amount of receivables collected by the Treasury stood at 58.4 million Turkish liras (around $11 million) by the end of February.

As of end of 2018, Turkish government’s gross debt stock amounted to 1.07 trillion Turkish liras ($202.5 billion).

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira rate was around 5.34 as of Feb. 28, up from around 5.27 at the end of last year.