Turkey's budget balance posts $880M deficit in January-May

ANKARA

The Turkish central government registered a budget deficit of 7.5 billion Turkish liras (some $880 million) in January-May, the Treasury and Finance Ministry announced on Tuesday.

The figure improved from a deficit of 90 billion Turkish liras (some $10.5 billion) in the same period last year.

Turkey's budget revenues increased 39.4% year-on-year to 542.4 billion Turkish liras ($63.5 billion) in the first five months of 2021.

The country's budget expenditures totaled some 550 billion Turkish liras ($64.4 billion) from January to May, up 14.8% from a year ago.

The budget balance excluding interest payments posted a surplus of 73.9 billion Turkish liras ($8.6 billion) in January-May.

Tax revenues totaled 423.7 billion Turkish liras ($49.6 billion), while interest payments were 81.45 billion Turkish liras ($9.54 billion) in the same period.

One US dollar traded for 8.37 Turkish liras on average in May and 7.74 in the first five months of this year.

Monthly figure

In May, the central government registered a deficit of 13.4 billion Turkish liras (some $1.6 billion), down from 17.3 billion Turkish liras ($2 billion) in the same month of last year.

The budget revenue was 104.5 billion Turkish liras ($12.25 billion) last month, jumping 53.5% on a yearly basis.

Turkey's budget expenditures increased 38% from last May to 117.9 billion Turkish liras ($13.8 billion) this May.

Excluding interest payments, the central government budget balance registered a surplus of 575 Turkish liras ($67.3 million) in May 2021.