Turkey's budget balance posts $3.3B surplus in February

ANKARA

The Turkish central government's budget balance registered a 23.2 billion Turkish liras ($3.3 billion) surplus this February, after posting a deficit in the last two months, official figures revealed on Monday.

The Treasury and Finance Ministry data showed that the reading bettered from a deficit of 24.2 billion Turkish liras ($3.4 billion) in February 2020.

The country's budget revenues reached 119.6 billion Turkish liras ($16.8 billion) last month, a 39% rise on an annual basis.

Turkey's budget expenditures was 96.4 billion Turkish liras ($13.6 billion) in February, up 3% year-on-year.

The budget balance excluding interest payments posted a surplus of 35.9 billion Turkish liras ($5.1 million) last month.

Tax revenues totaled 98.4 billion Turkish liras ($13.8 billion), while interest payments were 12.8 billion Turkish liras ($1.8 billion) in the same period.

One US dollar traded for 7.1 Turkish liras on average in this February and 7.24 in the first two months of 2021.

Cumulative figure

In January-February, the budget balance saw a deficit of 984 million Turkish liras ($135. million), while it posted a surplus of 14 billion Turkish liras (some $2.3 billion) in the same period of last year.

Budget revenues totaled 209.2 billion Turkish liras ($28.9 billion) in the first two months of this year and expenditures hit 210.2 billion Turkish liras ($29 billion).

The budget balance, excluding interest payments, saw a surplus of 33.7 billion Turkish liras ($4.7 billion) in January-February.