Turkish Central Bank reserves stand at $107.6B in July

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA

The Turkish Central Bank’s total reserves stood at $107.6 billion as of July 31, the bank announced on Monday.

Official reserve assets went down by one percent, compared to $108.7 billion as of June 30, according to the bank's international reserves and foreign currency liquidity report.

In July, foreign currency reserves -- in convertible foreign currencies -- fell to $86.5 billion, marking a monthly decrease of 2.5 percent.

As another sub-item of official reserve assets, gold reserves -- including gold deposits and, if appropriate, gold swapped -- rose by 6.3 percent last month to reach $19.7 billion, compared to the previous month.

At the end of July 2016, in the wake of last year's defeated coup bid, the bank's total reserves stood at $119.6 billion, of which $98.3 billion were in foreign currency along with $19.8 billion of gold reserves.

Over the past ten years, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) official reserve assets increased by nearly 39 percent, from $76.4 billion at the end of 2007 to last year's close of some $106 billion.

In mid-December 2013, the bank's total reserves saw a historic high at nearly $136 billion, of which some $21 billion were in gold reserves.

Liability side

Meanwhile, the bank noted that short-term predetermined net drains of the central government and the CBRT -- foreign currency loans, securities and foreign exchange deposit accounts of residents abroad within the CBRT -- decreased by 16.6 percent in July compared to the previous month, realizing at $11.9 billion.

Of this amount, $7.8 billion belongs to principal repayments and $4.1 billion to interest repayments, it added.

The CBRT report also revealed that contingent short-term net drains on foreign currency stood at $63.4 billion last month, increased by 0.9 percent compared to June.

According to the bank's definition, contingent short-term net drains on foreign currency consists of “collateral guarantees on debt due within one year” and “other contingent liabilities" which are the banking sector’s required reserves in blocked accounts in foreign currency and gold, and letters of credit items on the CBRT’s balance sheet.