ANKARA
Turkey's central government has run a 4.1 billion Turkish lira ($1.6 billion) deficit for the first four months of 2015, Turkey's Finance Ministry reported Monday.
There was a budget surplus of 1.4 billion Turkish lira ($540 million) in April, a deficit of 6.8 billion lira ($2.6 billion) in March and 2.4 billion Turkish lira ( $915 million) in February and a 3.8 billion Turkish lira ($1.54 billion) surplus in January.
"The budget deficit in the first four months is lower than last year, which was 4.2 billion lira. The budget performance in 2015 is stronger than last year,” Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said in the statement.
According to the ministry, Turkey's government budget revenues have reached 156.2 billion Turkish liras ($60.2 billion) in the first four months of 2015, an 12.9 percent increase compared with the same period of 2014.
Budget expenditures for the same period rose to 160.2 billion Turkish lira ($61.74 billion), marking a 12.3 percent increase year-on-year.
Turkey's government revenue in April was 43 billion Turkish liras ($16.5 billion) with 26.1 percent increase year on year while budget expenditures was 41.6 billion Turkish liras ($16 billion) ,up a 13 percent increase from a year earlier.
Turkey's Finance Ministry has estimated budget expenses for the 2015 fiscal year will reach 473 billion Turkish liras ($192 billion), while budget income will reach 452 billion ($183.5 billion), resulting in a budget deficit of 21 billion Turkish liras ($8.6 billion).
Simsek forecasts that Turkey will reach its budget deficit goal in 2015 as increase in political predictability and improvement in domestic demand after elections contribute to the budget revenues.
"The deficit is constituted 19.4 percent of year-end target. The number is compatible with our estimate of 21 billion Turkish liras ($8.6 billion) budget deficit for 2015," he said.
The Turkish central government's budget ran a deficit of 22.7 billion Turkish liras ($10 billion) in 2014.
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