Turkey projects foreign debt payment at $10.8B in 2019

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA

The Turkish Treasury on Thursday forecasted the foreign debt payment to total $10.8 billion for next year.

The total amount of debt service is projected to realize at 224.8 billion Turkish liras ($40.4 billion) in 2019, the Treasury and Finance Ministry said in an online statement.

"Total domestic debt service is expected to realize as 164.6 billion ($30 billion) while total external debt service is expected to be at 60.2 billion ($10.8 billion),” according to the Treasury Financing Program.

The payments of principal would total 118.1 billion Turkish liras ($21.2 billion) with interest at 106.7 billion Turkish liras ($19.2 billion).

"25.8 billion ($4.63 billion) of the total financing need in 2019 is expected to be met through non-borrowing resources including the cash primary surplus, privatization revenues, the revenues from 2-B land sales, the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund transfers, receipts from on-lent and guaranteed debt and use of cash account," it said.

The Treasury planned to borrow 199 billion Turkish liras ($35.7 billion) in 2019, according to the program.

It plans to provide the equivalent of $8 billion in external funding next year through bond issuances in international capital markets.

The total amount of domestic borrowing was estimated to be 153.9 billion Turkish liras ($27.6 billion) in 2019.

For 2018, the Treasury estimated that total borrowing would increase to nearly 180 billion Turkish liras ($31.3 billion) from 163.8 billion ($42.7 billion) as first planned.