UPDATE - Turkey's current account posts $2.5B surplus in Sept.

UPDATE WITH MORE DETAILS

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's current account balance saw a $2.48 billion surplus in September, bettering by $599 million from September 2018, the Turkish Central Bank announced on Tuesday.

Balance of payments figures showed the country's 12-month rolling surplus amounted to $5.9 billion.

An Anadolu Agency survey on Monday showed that economists had projected current account balance to post a surplus of $2 billion in September.

The estimates of a group of 14 economists range between $1.7 billion and $2.4 billion.

The survey also revealed the end-2019 current account balance is forecast to register a surplus of $200 million.

The improvement was mainly driven by a reduction in the import-export gap to $867 million, down $48 million from a year earlier and a rise in the net income from services to $4.3 billion, up $694 million.

Travel items, which constitute a major part of the services account, ran a net inflow of nearly $3.5 billion in September, increasing by $619 million on an annual basis.

Turkey's gold and energy excluded current account surplus reached $5.8 billion, indicating a rise of $670 million during the same period.

The country's new economic program, unveiled in September, forecast a current-account-surplus-to-GDP ratio of 0.1% for 2019.