Turks protect currency by selling $10.8 bln to lira

ANKARA (AA) - More than $10.8 billion worth of foreign currency in Turkey has been changed to Turkish lira since the July 15 coup attempt, according to the Central Bank's weekly bulletin on Thursday.

The bank's data shows that foreign-owned deposits in the country decreased by 6.2 percent, from $174,1 billion to $163.3 billion in the two weeks between July 15 and July 29.

General deposit in the Turkish banking sector also declined by 20.3 billion liras ($6.8 billion) from July 15 to July 29, reaching 1.33 trillion liras ($440 billion), but up 10.3 percent year-on-year, the bank said.

The Turkish lira has been under pressure, tumbling over 5 percent against the dollar after the July 15 coup attempt, but it has since regained its value around nearly 3 percent.

The country’s deputy prime minister Mehmet Simsek credited the switch to lira by Turks on July 20 as protecting the economy, following the attempt to overthrow the government by the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO).

“Turkish people who stopped the July 15 coup attempt [also] defeated the coup in the Turkish market by exchanging their foreign currency,” Simsek said.

The volume of loans from the Turkish banking sector decreased to 1.545 trillion Turkish lira ($511 billion) in the two weeks from July 15 to July 29, according to the Central Bank.

While the credit volume stood at 1.548 trillion Turkish lira (almost $512 billion) as of July 15, it decreased by 2.8 billion Turkish lira ($927 million) in one week.