Turkish Treasury posts over $57B revenue in January

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA

Turkey's Treasury received 57.4 billion Turkish liras ($15.2 billion) in cash revenue this January, the Treasury Undersecretariat said on Wednesday.

The Treasury's non-interest expenditures amounted to 53.5 billion Turkish liras ($14.2 billion) last month, marking a 3.9 billion lira ($1.03 billion) non-interest surplus.

The Treasury did not collect any revenues from privatization or fund income -- including transfers by the Turkish Privatization Administration, 4.5G license payment, land sale revenues, etc. -- in January.

Interest payments last month were 5.4 billion Turkish liras ($1.4 billion), making it the top contributor to the balance deficit.

The cash balance -- a $410 million deficit -- represents the Treasury's cash revenues plus privatization and fund income minus expenditures, including interest payments, in the first month of 2018.

Last year, the Treasury's cash balance was a deficit of 60.4 billion Turkish liras ($16.5 billion). The 12-month revenue was 636.6 billion Turkish liras ($174.5 billion), while expenditures -- including interest payments -- totaled over 697 billion Turkish liras ($191 billion) in 2017.

The average U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was 3.78 in January. One dollar traded for 3.65 liras on average last year.