Turkey: Net external debt stock totals $286B in Q3 2018

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL

Turkey's Treasury and Finance Ministry announced that the country's net external debt stock totaled $286.2 billion as of the end of September this year.

The country's net external debt stock to its gross domestic product (GDP) ratio was 34.4 percent at the end of the third quarter of 2018, the ministry's data showed on Monday.

Turkey's gross external debt stock amounted to $448.4 billion in the same period, indicating a debt/GDP ratio of 53.8 percent, according to the official figures.

The private sector's share in the country's gross external debt stock was 68.2 percent ($305.9 billion), while some $215.9 billion of this amount consisted of long-term debts -- with a maturity of more than one year.

As of September, Turkish public sector's share was 30.6 percent in the country's total foreign debt -- around $21.4 billion to be paid back in the short-term and some $115.7 billion in the long-term.

Some 58.5 percent of the total gross external debt was in the U.S. dollar, 32.3 percent was in euro, and 5.9 percent in Turkish lira.

The net external debt stock was calculated as the gross domestic debt excluding the banking sector's debt plus the banking and the monetary sectors' net foreign assets.

The banking sector's (lenders and the central bank) external debt stock was $176.99 billion as of September.