Turkey's budget posts $3.6 bln surplus in January

ISTANBUL

The Turkish central government budget balance saw a surplus of 21.5 billion Turkish Liras ($3.6 billion) in January, the Treasury and Finance Ministry has said.

In the same month of 2019, the central budget produced a surplus of 5.09 billion.

Turkey’s budget revenues rose 26 percent to hit 122.17 billion liras ($20.6 billion) year-on-year in January, the official data showed, Anadolu Agency reported.

The country’s budget expenditure was 100.67 billion liras ($17 billion) in the month, up 9.6 percent from the same month of last year.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate averaged 5.93 in January.

Excluding interest payments, the budget balance also saw a surplus of 34.25 billion liras in January, while interest expenditures totaled some 12.74 billion liras.

The central budget’s overall revenues rose 26 percent on an annual basis to 122 billion liras in the first month of the year.

The government targets collect a total of 957 billion liras in revenues this year.

Tax revenues reached 67.4 billion liras in January, posting a 21 percent rise compared with the same month of 2019.

Value-added tax on imports and revenues from the special consumption tax increased by 29.6 percent and 22.2 percent to 10.55 billion liras and 12.93 billion liras, respectively, according to the ministry data.

Non-tax revenues also showed some 34 percent increase on an annual basis to 53.38 billion.

In 2019, Turkey’s central government budget balance posted a deficit of 123.7 billion liras, with 876 billion liras of revenue and 999.5 billion liras of expenses.

The country’s economic program, announced last September, aims to keep the budget deficit to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio at 2.9 percent in 2019, 2020, and 2021.

The government projects that the budget deficit will be 138.9 billion this year. The central government budget deficit is projected to amount to 157.6 billion liras next year.

According to the estimates in the economic program, the country’s budget deficit will ease to 2.6 percent of gross domestic product (or 160.1 billion liras) in 2022.

The Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) will release GDP figures for 2019 in March.

The Treasury and Finance Ministry yesterday said in a statement, accompanying the budget figures for January, that during the program period fiscal discipline will be maintained with determination.